Fiji Fishing Report Feb 2012

The summer run of Yellowfin Tuna has so far not produced huge numbers of smaller schooling fish along the barrier reef edges but offshore, the big cow yellowfin are running. This trophy fish was taken aboard Bite Me fishing a stickbait over the Kadavu Seamount by Australian angler Matt, owner of Tackle World - Exmouth. Quite a fight on a poppercasting outfit !

Joe was delighted with his dinner !

Luckily, Matava Resort now has a Spa to sort out Matt's back !

 The GTs are hitting surface poppers on the calm days

 

Quite a few Dogtooth Tuna on jigs but so far, no monsters...

 Deepwater jigging has produced some nice Groupers....

 

 and trophy fish like this huge Coral Trout....

 Dropping jigs on the outer reef slopes has produced all sorts of species

 Rosy Jobfish

 Long Nose Emperor

  

Jigging for Dogtooth Tuna

Dan from Australia hooks up....

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

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

Last Popping Week of the Season

Some pics of the last popping & jigging week of the Fiji summer season. These guys came all the way from Italy organised by an Italian specialist fishing agency - Fishmania Travel
Vincenzo Caccico from Fishmania takes specialist anglers to some of the best remote popping and jigging spots around the world. You can see his blog here.
One of the anglers, Antonello, came last year but this time nailed his personal Best GT over 40kg.
We jigged the seamount but the big doggies were absent so the guys had some fun popping for wahoo that schooled all around Bite Me.

A small GT in black spawning colouration

Blackfin Barracuda with an apetite bigger than its mouth

Vincenzo contemplates a big Great Barracuda and how much damage it's done to his Craftbait popper !

Popping for wahoo on the seamount

One of several wahoo taken on poppers

Some nice Grouper on the jigs

A very unusual catch - a Coronet Fish

Rosy Jobfish

Anto knocks off another mid-sized GT

New Inshore Popper Boat "Tease Me"

Tease Me

We have just taken delivery of our new inshore popping & jigging boat 'Tease Me' and despite the recent direct hit from Tropical Cyclone Mick, she now rests safely on her mooring at Matava Resort.


Full specs will be detailed soon on the gamefishing website but here are a couple of pics to wet your appetite.

Extended high side rails for added safety, coolboxes for chilled drinks and storage for safety equipment

Full walk-around for fighting fish and T-top for shade

Tease Me should be an ideal platform for anglers to work the inshore coral lagoons, outer barrier reef drop-offs and breakers popper casting for GTs, bluefin trevally, yellowfin tuna, Spanish Mackerel, jobfish and jigging for a whole host of species including dogtooth tuna, amberjack, giant grouper and deepwater snappers.

Tips On Fiji Inshore / Reef Pattern (The ‘I don’t care spread’)

The Fiji Islands enjoy a whole variety of sport fish species from reef dwelling coral trout to oceanic blue marlin. Whilst we usually target particular species aboard our game fishing vessels Bite Me and Offensive Tackle, we sometimes take resort guests out simply to catch dinner and have fun doing so.

Its general fishing (Otherwise known as “I don’t care what I catch just as long as its big and tasty”) so we aim to cover all our bases and catch a variety of different species.

We run 15kg (30lb) Shimano TLD25 outfits on Excalibur roller tip rods with a 9ft double connected to a short leader. All minnows are rigged on a short single strand wire trace. The sample spread below should give you an idea of how we fish the inner lagoons and fringing reefs for anything and everything found there.

Sample “I don’t care” spread from our inshore sport fishing boat ‘Offensive Tackle’

SHORT CORNER

1. Halco Sorcerer – Silver (mullet) , Target – Mackerel, Grouper, Red Bass

2. Halco Laser Pro 190 Crazy Deep – Silver (mullet)

LONG CORNER

1. Lurestreet Raptor – Green / Gold or Red / White, Target – Mackerel, Barracuda, Long Tom

SHORT RIGGER

1. Wellsys Micro Bullet – Red black / Pink, Target – Tuna, all Trevally

LONG RIGGER

1. Pakula Uzi – Orange, Target – Tuna, all Trevally

2. Abu Toby Spoon or other metal slug- Silver, Target - Queenfish

SHOTGUN

1. Halco Laser Pro 160 minnow – Redhead, Target – Mackerel, Tuna, all Trevally

3. Pakula Phantom – Blue Silver / Green Gold (Evil), Target – Sailfish.

3. Halco Roosta Popper – Redhead, Target – Large Great Barracuda & GTs

Species Variety:

Mackerel – Narrow Barred (Spanish) Mackerel, Shark Mackerel, Double lined Mackerel

Tuna – Yellowfin Tuna, Skipjack Tuna, Mackerel Tuna (Kawakawa), Bigeye Tuna, Albacore.

Trevally – Giant Trevally, Bluefin Trevally, Bigeye Trevally, Brassy Trevally, Golden Trevally

Barracuda – Great Barracuda, Chevron Barracuda, Bigeye Barracuda

Grouper – Coral Trout, Lyretail Grouper, Peacock Grouper, Rock Cod

Where we get our Inshore lures :

www.welsystackle.com

www.palmfishing.com.au