Fiji Gamefishing Report

A little summary from last week's fishing with anglers Hayden & Guy from Australia. We had a bit of a mixture of weather, a couple of nice days and a couple of decidedly 'iffy' days.
The water temperature is still hovering around 25.5 a shade warmer than normal and a warmer water current coming down from the NW over the North Astrolabe Barrier reef has brought plankton rich coloured surface water, not ideal consitions for the wahoo and sails. Compared to the week before, the fishing was quiet with the changing conditions.


We did manage a day jigging on the seamount for dogtooth tuna. Plenty of wahoo around which proved costly on the jigs. Hayden had a nice doggie of over 30kg sharked by several whaler sharks right at the back of the boat which was a bit of a shame. Guy then hooked into a freight train that powered away from the seamount just as the really big dogtooth do. We gave chase but just after 10 minutes the hooks pulled. I estimate this fish was well over 60kg.

Hayden about to see his prized doggie sharked

Heads you win...Tails you lose..

Guy hooks up to one of the really big dogtooth and hangs on for the ride...

A consolation prize. Retrieving our jig from the depths after the hooks pulled did net us a little yellowfin for some nice sashimi for dinner.

We also has some fun taking several wahoo with jigs

The popper casting was unusually quiet, probably because of the coloured surface waters



Amazing what you see on the seamount. Standing there jigging away and up pops a pair of humpback whales just to say hi. We also had a Hammerhead shark investigate us but a little too shy for a decent photo.

Monster Dogtooth Tuna Day

We have just had a monster day jigging aboard Bite Me for Dogtooth Tuna....
Scott, Dave and Tim from Australia didn't know what they had let themselves in for when they broke out their jig outfits and asked "Do you get Dogtooth Tuna here ?"
"Er...Yes" I said..."Want to catch one ?"

We landed a few amberjack, small grouper and several small doggies from 5 to 25 kg then at at 11.45 we found the big ones..... Scott and Tim loaded up with fish that just melted line off their Stellas like they were attached to a couple of freight trains. As Bite Me moved ahead to keep pace with the unstoppable fish, Dave brought his jig up shallow and got nailed by a 25kg wahoo....
Now we have a tripple hook-up with a wahoo steaming around on the surface and two big dogtooth making for New Zealand down at 200m..... This just got interesting....

Three jig outfits loaded up

So...we knock off the wahoo first whilst keeping pace with the big dogtooth tunas...

Dave's nice Wahoo on the jig

After about 20 minutes Tim's Doggie starts to tire and Tim steadily works his fish to the surface...and what a cracker doggie it is....around 55kg..

Tim's first monster Doggie

Then after half an hour Scott's fish begins to tire under relentless pressure and Scott manages to haul his fish out of the depths. This doggie is even bigger, later weighing in at 63kg (around 138lbs)

Fish of a lifetime for Scott on the right...

We try to revive the fish for a release but to no avail...its just too tired. Its not suffering from barotrauma so we don't want to drop the fish down with a release weight, release, and not know if its ok.

Swimming a big dogtooth can be tricky

Keep you hands and fingers well clear !

That's quite a haul for a tripple hook-up !

But we were not done yet...the day was young....we had not even had lunch yet !
Down go the jigs again and Wham ! Scott is straight into another small doggie around 25kg (later released) but Tim is bent over the gunwhale desperately clinging onto his rod as line peels off his reel again...muttering "oh no...oh no..." whilst Dave takes pictures of Tim's look of horror as he watches his spool empty.

Tim's second big Doggie

After a 20 minute figh we beat the fish and Tim now has a 65kg (143lbs) Dogtooth Tuna on his list of angling achievements.

The sheer width and bulk of a big Dogtooth Tuna is mindblowing

It was at this point ( I am very happy to say) that the guys decided enough is enough... Three huge doggies on deck is enough fish for anybody. We didn't want to risk not being able to release any more fish. We ended our couple of hours jigging session with 10 Dogtooth Tuna and managed to release 4 of them. We pulled up sticks and went back to the GT popper casting....

What did you do today ?