Kadavu Fishing Update

Skipper Joe has been having some fun casting lures to surface feeding Yellowfin Tuna. Great fun for anglers and of course delicious shashimi for all the Resort guests !

Jarrod with a yellowfin caught casting poppers aboard Bite Me Too

 The winter Wahoo are moving in with some decent solitary fish and a few starting to school up.

 

 Angler Steve with a very nice 30kg Narrow Barred Mackerel

Just in case you were thinking of using a mono leader here in winter time.....Think again !

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 !

New Offshore Fishing Boat Almost Complete

Work is well under way on our brand new offshore sportfishing boat Bite Me II being built by BlueWater craft in Navua, Viti Levu. She will be a 28ft go-fast go-anywhere fishing machine designed to perfectly service the growing GT Popping and deep water jigging specialists as well as offer anglers the opportunity to go after pelagic gamefish such as marlin, Pacific Sailfish, yellowfin Tuna, Dorado and Wahoo on stand-up tackle. Powered by the very latest Twin 150 Mercury 4-strokes she will cruise at 25 kts and be capable of reaching 35+ knots at WOT.

Sister Ship

Our vessel will be based on the above design however we have added a number of modifications to suit our fishing around Kadavu Island.

The main hull is complete with the large centre console going on now.

With a 400L in-floor fuel tank she will be very stable for casting and jigging and have extensive range.

We have specified grab rails at the perfect height for safety and ease of casting poppers

There will be plenty of rod storage

and of course easy access transom door for hauling in a big Yellowfin or sliding in the big GTs for release !

I will be personally supervising the finishing touches and loading all the required brand new safety equipment in a few weeks and we hope to have her in Marine Survey and in service by the beginning of December. We are now taking bookings for the summer season starting 1st January 2014.

I can’t wait to barrel out to the Kadavu Seamount and drop some jigs !

IGFA GT Record up for Grabs

As most anglers will be aware, the IGFA now has a new Record Catagory - The All Tackle Length Record. This is strictly a Release Catagory so all eligible fish must be released in healthy condition.
 As we release all GTs caught here, this record catagory is ideal for us to have a go at the World Record.

Wait ! Measure that !

The current record is 107cm so about 42 Inches, held by Patrick Sebil
We have released plenty of GTs larger than that... This season we will be measuring all the big ones with our brand new IGFA Length Scale !

For those of you aware of the hand made custom Eyre rods we use on Bite Me, you might like to take a quick look at the new Eyre Nano Technology GT Bone Popping rods. I expect them to compare well this season against the top end Ripple Fishers and Hots...

This fish would have taken the IGFA Length World Record !

Prime Slot opens up for Anglers

Summer Dolphinfish are numerous

Matava Eco-Adventure Resort was totally fully booked with divers for early January however it has just had a cancellation from the 1st to the 10th January 2012 opening up some accommodation space.
This means that Bite Me Gamefishing Charters now has a slot available for any anglers who might wish to charter Bite Me or Tease Me between the 1-10th January 2012

During our summer season we usually concentrate on offshore heavy tackle gamefishing for blue marlin and yellowfin tuna or we focus on heavy tackle popping for GTs and deepwater jigging for Dogtooth Tuna.

Summer time is usually when we see the larger blue marlin

The summer Yellowfin Tuna run is when we get the big cow yellowfin

Yellowfin boiling on glassy seas....a typical summer sight

Weather conditions are usually hot, humid and calm, ideal for offshore gamefishing, working outer barrier reef slopes with poppers for huge GTs and deepwater jigging.

If anybody is interested, please drop me a line any time at adrian@GameFishingFiji.com

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....

Fun Day on Bite Me

Claudia & Ben's first double hook-up

Claudia & Ben and Dang & Mary recently had a fun day of gamefishing aboard Bite Me. We fished the North Astrolabe Barrier Reef with 15kg trolling gear and soon found some nice Yellowfin Tuna.



Not only are yellowfin a lot of fun to fight and land on medium tackle, they are delicious to eat !
Sashimi starter and seared yellowfin steaks for dinner...
We did however release a couple after we had a good feed on board.

Mary's first Yellowfin

On the way home we stopped off at one of my little GT spots so that Ben & Dang could throw some poppers.....

Ben released this nice GT over 20kg

Dang then landed and released this lovely GT around 30kg caught on a Buffalo Popper

Everyone caught lots of fish and had a great day out....and to top it off we were all very popular with the other resort guests when we presented fresh yellowfin for dinner that night !

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