Albacore Record Smashed !

Skipper Joe took angler Boyang Zhang out for some deep-water jigging last week aboard the new boat Bite Me Too. Great weather meant ideal jigging conditions and Boyang made the most of it hooking up and landing a 19.6kg Albacore setting a new M-36 Fiji National Record.

 That's a monster Albacore !

The very distinctive Pectoral fins on an Albacore

A very good Fiji Record catch for Boyang and of course - very good eating for all the other guests at Matava Resort !

First Blood

The new boat Bite Me Too went into action with Joe skippering taking out Peter & Sophie from Australia for a bit of trolling, GT Popping and Jigging on a couple of half days.

 

Peter came with the right GT Tackle

 First GT !

 A nice Bluefin Trevally for Sophie

 

A bigger GT for Peter

 A little doggie caught trolling

 Peter jigged up a bigger Dogtooth Tuna

Just to keep the other Resort guests happy.....Dinner !

The Yellowfin Tuna are now starting to move in with several big schools close in to the outer Barrier Reef. Still around the 20-40lb size but the big cow Yellowfin won't be far behind.
We still have openings for bookings in March / April and Matava Resort has some crazy Accommodation Specials available so drop us a line here !

Bite Me Too Delivered !

Our brand new fishing boat Bite Me Too is now at the Resort and we are running in the engines and seeing just how fast she can go. The answer....Very !

Skipper Joe winds up the brand new Mercury 4-stroke 150s and she takes off...

Cruising at 30kts, we can now park on the Kadavu Seamount in under an hour....

Furuno Chartplotter, Sounder, VHF Radio, Lifejackets for 8, comfortable seating for six, plenty of rod storage, tackle boxes, ice boxes and even a head !

She is now ready for our summer GT Popping and Jigging season.

Drop us a line here if you want to be one of the fist to  blast around Kadavu Island !

Summer Kadavu Fishing Update

The GT fishing recently has been pretty modest by our standards. We have been having to work harder than normal with La Nina weather patterns still affecting the ocean current directions along the outer barrier reef.  First off, some pics from Mark from the US who was kind enough to let me post a few pics from his trip.

 Dogtooth Tuna on a Jig

 

Coral Trout on a Stickbait

 Always fun the Red Bass

Mangrove Jack !

Not really any Kadavu Monsters in the mix but a very nice variety of species on both Poppers and Jigs. Offshore South of Kadavu there a lots of schooling skipjack tuna and along the reef, yellowfin to 100lbs but the really big cow yellowfin should move into Kadavu waters in the next few weeks.
They are coming in from the North so currently they are being seen between Kadavu and Beqa Lagoon. This 73kg fish below was caught yesterday aboard NoahRay (Freedive Fiji Charters) fishing off Beqa.

Nice Yellowfin guys !

Other recent news, Stephanie Choate, daughter of Tim Choate ( One of the founders of  The Billfish Foundation ) knocked off the Fiji Womens W-08 kg Narrowbarred Mackerel Record with this fish:

It made wonderful Kokoda for all the guests !

Jigging for Dogtooth Tuna

Dan from Australia hooks up....

But it turns out to be a big Grouper....

October 2011 GT Popping

Its still early days yet with the summer Popping and Jigging season starting in December but a couple of anglers from Australia caught a break with the Spring weather and got some great GT Popping in.

Justin's pretty pleased with this 45 inch short length GT

Red Bass

Double Hook-upfor Brendan & Justin

Another nice GT pushing 40kg for Justin

Last season the Pacific Ocean experienced a strong La Nina event. This meant that higher than normal sea surface temperatures were experienced in the West Pacific, particularily the Coral Sea. Tropical cyclones derive their energy from the warm oceans so most cyclones developed to the West of Fiji and tracked away from us. For us this meant good weather but frequent large ground swells from the South West as cyclones track south to the West of Fiji. The weather patterns stalled the normal oceanic currents that sweep along the Great Astrolabe Barrier Reef and the water clarity was poor compared to a normal season. We countered this by switching primarily from poppers to stickbaits as the GTs tended to sit out in deeper waters rather than their usual whitewater breakers zone.
The NOAA weather gurus are forecasting another La Nina event this year but it is expected to be much weaker than last year and shorter lived.



The above chart from NOAA shows current sea surface temperature anomolies. You can see the La Nina effects with a big slug of warmer than normal water in the SW Pacific and cooler than normal sea surface temperatures off the Americas.
So, all in all, we are expecting fewer than average cyclones for Fiji this summer and a better GT Popping season than last year.
Not such good news for Queenslanders....Expect above average numbers of cyclones this summer....

Jan 2011 Popping & Jigging - Latest

Marcio with his first Doggy

Randy Chin from JDM Tackle was here last week with Brazilian angler Marcio and photographer Christian for a bit of GT popping and deepwater jigging.
I tried not to get in the way of all the photography but managed to elbow in a few shots...

Randy quickly knocks off a small one

A morning on the Kadavu Seamount produced a few dogtooth tuna but no monster fish that day.

Marcio poses for the camera...not my camera !

The GT bite was decidedly average, possibly because of a nearby tropical depression (later to become Cat 5 Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi and devestate parts of Queensland).

A nice Grouper for Randy on a Craftbait popper

Marcio's best GT

Grouper on a jig

GT on a Stickbait

Joe drops a jig and gets nailed by this huge Malabar Grouper

As with all Groupers, we do our best to catch & release

Randy with one of those long GTs that confuse weight formulas

If you would like to know more about the new type of stickbait lures used or the new rods tested out this week, drop Randy a line at JDM Tackle

Early January Gamefishing

Alex, Warren & Tony landed a tripple hook-up on yellowfin

Some pics from early January when Sam and Dave came back for another visit with friends Brendan and Alex. Also along for the trip were Sam's father Tony and Alex's father Warren.
We split the gang up in Bite Me and Tease Me every day with Bite Me focusing more on general trolling and Tease Me popping. Pretty ordinary weather stopped us getting to the seamount but we manages dome decent fish and had plenty of fun.

Some days we met up for lunch and a bit of bragging

Longnose Emperor

Dave with a nice Narrow Barred Mackerel

Malabar Grouper caught jigging the outer reef slopes

Bluefin Trevally

Brendan landed this nice GT on a new prototype Buffalo Stickbait

Joe cruising Tease Me between his favourite GT popper spots

This Halco Haymaker was irrisistible to the big Barracudas