Fiji Winter Season Gamefishing Summary

Well we are pretty much done with the 2012 Fiji winter season now. I think it could best be described as um....lets say "Challenging". A second year of continuing La Nina weather patterns reinforced last year's unusual oceanic currents and higher than normal water temperatures. Last year's wahoo season suffered a bit but the double La Nina whammy just killed the normal spectaculor wahoo fishing here.

 

Peak Wahoo Season but La Nina intervened (again)

 
 The colder ocean currents that normally run West to North East along the Great Astrolabe Barrier Reef reversed direction and any wahoo that did venture into our unusually warm waters didn't gather into packs but simply moved on....We caught wahoo but the crazy 30-40 wahoo packs just didn't exist.

 A few decent sized solitary Wahoo were landed....

 

 

  But most fish were lean around the 20kg weight....Much smaller than normal

 The winter Yellowfin Tuna fishing wasn't to bad though. Occasionally a little patchy, it did produce some decent fish around 40kg aboard Bite Me. That's a decent size for the winter time. (Summer is when we see the really big 70kg+ Yellowfin Tuna)

 

 

 We did have some fun with the Ultra-Light tackle Avets & Custom Eyre outfits. Graeme above fought several Wahoo on 3kg line class as we targeted the M-03 IGFA World Record. We got one probable WR boatside but the fish was just a bit too green and made a last ditch run, ripping the leader through Joe's hand and snapping the Double. With so few Wahoo around we just didn't get enough shots to take out the World Record...

The winter Pacific Sailfish season was reasonable but not spectaculor... We did see quite a few large sails around 60kg and surprisingly, a fair few juveniles that couldn't have been more than 15kg !
Generally the sails here average around 40kg but this year seems to have been a year of extremes.

 All in all, a pretty disappointing winter Wahoo season compared to normal years. The good news is that the La Nina conditions are definitely now coming to an end. The general consensus in the scientific community is a possible reversal to an El Nino weather pattern.....In fact there are already signs on El Nino conditions developing in the Eastern Pacific.
The best Wahoo season I have ever experienced here was during the last El Nino event. Next season could well be the best Wahoo season in 10 years....A happy thought to end with.

Fiji Winter Season Saltwater Fishing Summary

From the beginning of 2011, the South Pacific experienced strong La Nina weather patterns. Warmer than normal water gathered towards the Western side of the Pacific leading to unusual weather conditions. Normal tropical depression and Cyclone paths shifted West and Australia's long running drought was broken. For the Fiji Islands this meant fine weather but frequent large ground swells from the South West. Normal oceanic currents along Kadavu Island's Great Astrolabe Barrier Reef stalled and the GT Popping season was significantly affected with coloured water outside the barrier reef and GTs moving from regular haunts.


The summer yellowfin tuna run started late but by the end of March, Bite Me was landing excellent yellowfin around 130lb with our best fish weighing in at 165lbs.

Our normal winter Wahoo season begins with the first wahoo packs arriving in May and by June the outer reef slopes are crowded with hundreds of wahoo packing up on reef points and current lines. Not this year. Water temps stayed stubbournly higher than normal. Our June water temp was the highest recorded for that month in 15 years....


Nevertheless we did get a wahoo run, just not as crazy as normal years. Packs averaged 10-15 fish rather than 20-30 and the average size was down from 60lbs to around 40lbs. The Kadavu Seamount proved very patchy wahoo fishing. Some days it was loaded, some days quiet. Very unusual indeed.


The Pacific Sailfish didn't disappoint but with unusual current directions along the reef and a scarcity in normal winter bait, they moved around a lot making my job a little harder than normal. Still, we did manage to take the M-06 (12lb) Fiji National Record with a sail of just over 75lbs.

The new M-06 Pacific Sailfish Fiji Record taken aboard Bite Me

The La Nina weather patterns usually only last 9-12 months so by December, the start of the next summer Popping & Jigging season, we should be back to normal. Looking forward to it.