September GT Popping

John and Angela from Manchester England recently stayed with us at Matava Eco- Adventure Resort. The reason for their stay ? To get married on holiday. The REAL reason for their stay - to fish !

Even though we are out of the normal GT Popping season, we managed to find some nice GTs. They were both very experienced fly fishers with many tarpon, bonefish and Pompano under their belts but this was their first proper go at GT popping.

Big bruiser head on this fella

The weather was a bit ordinary and the wahoo were thinning out so we spent most of our time popping. Big waves outside the barrier reef made the best GT spots a little tricky but the seas were beautiful inside the reef.

Tricky casting conditions

GT Heaven

Anybody fancy a swim ?

Nope.... Too busy catching these...

...and these...

25kg Narrow Barred Mackerel on a Heru Cubera popper

A smaller GT showing black colouration

Even the grouper were hitting poppers

Congratulations to John and Angela !
(oh, and the wedding thing as well.....)

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

This Week's Tally

The GT bite has been a bit quiet this past week. Bill and Marc visiting from Australia had to work hard for their fish. Not quite sure why, perhaps the run up to the full moon yesterday had something to do with it although most people think that's a good time to popper !
The fish were there... they just demanded a bit of extra effort from anglers.
Thanks for the pics guys !

Bill with his new Personal Best GT of around 30kg

Small doggies on jigs

Fair few Yellowfin around but mostly schoolies

The ever present Red Bass are always a bit of fun

Marc aboard Tease Me with a respectable GT taken on a Halco Haymaker

Brazil takes on the Kadavu GTs

Team Brazil

A first for Bite Me as 4 anglers from Brazil travel a very very long way to visit the Fiji Islands and take on the Kadavu Island GTs with popper casting gear.

Weather was a bit ordinary but we did get a few reasonable days and got stuck into some nice fish.Jin's best fish of the trip

We had a few Double-Headers

Jr's first GT

and of course plenty of chunky red bass....

Fancy a Job as a Deckie ?

Jordan gets some expert advice from Joe

Jordan Whittaker has been spending the past month gaining some gamefishing boat deck experience aboard Bite Me and Tease Me. Jordan is no stranger to Kadavu Island waters. He and his father Brett have fished the area many times aboard their 25ft Blackwatch and Jordan is no slouch when it comes to fighting some of Kadavu's monster wahoo.
This time though it was all about popper casting for GTs and jigging the outer barrier reef slopes.
This type of fishing requires a whole new skill set and a broad knowledge of heavy duty GT tackle, complex leader knots that cast through guides and the ability to carefully handle big GTs so that they can be released unharmed.

New species on jigs

Assessing a hook-up before sliding in a GT

Advising anglers on likely GT haunts

Getting ready to gently boat another GT

or Red Bass...

Jordan's toughest challange.... carefully releasing a 40-50kg Grey Reef Shark that was accidentally hooked on a jig.
I am delighted to say Jordan slid the hook out perfectly with a hook release pole and the shark was swam away unharmed.

It wasn't all fun though....Jordan's time was also spent stripping the cooling system on one of Bite Me's Iveco 280HP marine diesel engines, scrubbing the hull and running gear and of course...cleaning the head... Its not all glamour being a deckie...