Winter Kadavu Fishing Update

Its Wahoo Central now around Kadavu Island !
The Wahoo are thick and we are catching many Wahoo in sized up to 45kg (100lbs).

Magazine Editor Shane from Fishing SA Magazine with a 40+kg Wahoo

Vicki & Wayne (Mine's bigger than your's - Ooops) Nice one Vicki !

 Ben from Australia with a nice Wahoo caught trolling aboard Bite Me Too

Lance with a 40kg Hoo

The Wahoo are not the only species around. We are seeing some nice Pacific Sailfish mixed in as well as Mahi Mahi schooling a little off the reef.

Some anglers are even tossing a few popper at the reef and catching some great winter GTs

Vicki with a nice winter GT on Popper

The Wahoo will continue to be our main target species for the next two months as well as Sailfish along the outer barrier reef. We expect to still have great winter fishing well into October. With the water temp now hovering just above 24 anglers fishing offshore should also see some Striped Marlin and short billed Spearfish.

Hook Line and Sinker TV Filming aboard Bite Me

We were delighted to have the guys from Australian TV show "Hook Line & Sinker" filming aboard Bite Me for a couple of days. Presenters Matt and Nick with cameraman Mike had some fun fishing though the bite wasn't particularly great. There is a surface layer of zooplankton around colouring up the water and the big yellowfin were tough to find. Even so we managed a few GTs on poppers, groupers on jigs, yellowfin & mahi mahi on the troll and had some fun. I will post a short video clip when the show has been edited....

Hope the guys can come backs some time for the winter wahoo & Sails !

The Wahoo Show for South Australian Angler Magazine

Shane Mensforth, journalist, photographer and Editor of South Australian Angler with mates Kosta, Eric and Jack turned our La Nina affected winter season around and got stuck into some good wahoo fishing. The first few days we struggled with some ordinary weather and quiet offshore fishing but still managed a couple of nice mahi mahi and a few missed wahoo crash tackles.

Eric & Jack with a nice double on Mahi mahi

The weather finally allowed us to one of my favourite wahoo pack spots and sure enough we were soon into some frantic action aboard Bite Me.

A quadruple hook-up, typical of a wahoo pack mass attack

Not monsters but plenty of fun on light tackle

Kosta with a nice Wahoo

Shane meets Wahoo... meets Shark !

Shane would have landed the largest wahoo of the trip if it wasn't for the attention of a couple of as yet unidentified sharks. This head and shoulders alone weighed in at 14kg. We got quite a bit of underwater footage (including those pesky sharks) which the experts are examining. Our new GoPro cameras are getting us some amazing footage..... I will be posting soon....

Not ideal popping weather and the GTs didn't bite but a few judicious casts landed a nice Coral Trout for the dinner table....and Matava Lodge Chef Kuki's special tomato & chilli sauce...

More Recent Gamefishing Pictures

How do you like your Yellowfin ? BIG PLEASE !

We had a great late summer Yellowfin Tuna season. Everything from big cow 75kg fish down to tiny juveniles no more than a month or two old....

Mandy on her Honeymoon

Smallest yellowfin ever caught aboard Bite Me !

Jigging produced some interesting species

Albacore Tuna

Tuskfish

The usual species as well...

Dolphinfish around floating FADs

Wahoo starting to arrive for the winter season

The ever present GTs and Bluefin Trevally on poppers

Some Pics from this Week

Steve & Kathy from Florida

Jigged the Seamount this week, no doggies just a few odds & sodds like Almaco Jacks, groupers...
A lot of small yellowfin and skipjack tuna in the area.
Marlin bite has been quiet this week. We had a sinking skipbait whacked by a billfish whilst we fought a yellowfin but it didn't return to finish off the bait. Raised another small blue that lit up like a Christmas tree, methodically inspected three lures and then disappeared...probably because of all the tuna around us at the time.

Steve helps Joe bring in another nice Yellowfin

Jayson from Perth joined Steve & Kathy for a day on Bite Me landing this nice Yellowfin Tuna.
He spent the rest of his time popping aboard Tease Me - More on that later

Steve with a pretty female Mahi mahi

Late January Gamefishing Update

Joe leaders a nice Yellowfin Tuna

Father and son Darren & Josh had a few days gamefishing aboard Bite Me to celebrate Josh's 16th Birthday. We really wanted a nice blue marlin for Josh but the blues didn't want to cooperate. Despite trolling some of the world's best marlin lures around skipjack and yellowfin tuna schools charging around chasing flying fish....no blues.
The tuna were moving too quickly for us to livebait so it was Moldcrafts, Joe Yees, John Laus, Marlin Magics, Black Barts and Pakulas that we used on stand-op 50lb gear and 80lb chair tackle.

Darren with a beautiful Yellowfin Tuna

Joe hoiks in a Mahi Mahi (Dolpninfish)

A trip round the North side of the island found us yellwfin, Mahi mahi and even a missed bite from a Pacific Sailfish but the blues remained elusive.
(They are worse than London busses....Three bites in an hour then nothing for ages....drive you nuts they will )

Josh with a Mahi around 12kg

After a couple of days we turned to some popping and jigging. Weather a bit ordinary and the churned up choppy water not ideal for popping but we found some fish.

Darren loads up one of our Saragosa 18,000s on a GT Special

Josh lands and releases his first ever GT

and his first ever doggie on a jig

December 2010 Fishing Report Part 2

Anglers Craig and Nick continued their fishing adventures aboard Bite Me starting off day 3 with the medium tackle trolling gear. With a whole variety of species around at the moment we were hedging our bets with marlin lures on 50lb stand-up gear on the riggers and lighter tackle set off the corners trolling Halco Laser Pros for yellowfin and dolphinfish.

First up, a dinner and a nice tastey looking Dolly for Craig

Then the Mold Craft Wide Range on the long rigger got swiped at...and then grabbed, loading up with a mystery fish that didn't jump at first. 30 seconds later we found out what it was when a surprise out of season Pacific Sailfish began leaping about behind the boat.


A little out-classed on 50lb gear Nick soon had the sail boatside for a Tag shot, photos and quick release.

A lovely little Pacific Sailfish around 35kg

A quiet afternoon trolling so we swung into the reef to have a quick popper at the GTs and get limbered up for the next day of full-on GT Popping....

August Roars, September Fizzles

We had an awsome August with numerous wahoo packs, glorious weather, Fiji Records and even a new pending womens Wahoo IGFA World Record aboard Bite Me but I suppose it couldn't continue for ever....
September has opened up with windy weather and a rapidly increasing water temp, neither of which is positive news for the wahoo.
Despite this, we still continued to catch wahoo whenever we were able to access the hotspots.

Another Hoo hits the deck

Michael's first Wahoo

Alex's first Wahoo

Nick Kennedy with a nice Mackerel

Doggies and emperors on jigs

Some big Bull Dolphinfish around

The weather and the water temperatures will now dictate the fishing for the next 2 months. The wahoo will soon start to thin out and we enter that 'grey' area between the winter and summer seasons. Normally we would expect the first run of summer yellowfin tuna around December but with this early winter season ending and the water temperatures rocketing we hope and expect expect the summer yellowfin to show early.

Some winter yellowfin - Scarce this season

And the prize for 'Most Bizzare Catch of the Month' goes to Bob for this Starry Triggerfish (abalistes stellatus )

Hmmm....."I'm not getting *that* thing off the hook Bob, you're on your own mate...."