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I’m asked all the time, “What’s your favourite fish to catch?” It’s also a question I often ponder myself. But there is no definitive answer, because it’s hard to measure or compare the satisfaction of landing a thumping big snapper on a crisp calm morning to the thrill of hooking and landing a big game fish. Saying, “I like all fishing equally” is a cop-out though, so to get an answer I had to weigh up all the things I like about fishing. These include: enjoying a challenge, such as landing a big snapper over rough ground; catching a fish that pulls hard and looks awesome, like tuna; being ‘hands on’ with fishing, rigging and fishing my own baits or lures; holding the rod when a big fish strikes – as when jigging for kingfish; seeing a big fish follow and then eat the lure or bait, like a marlin; and, of course, I love exploring new fishing grounds! With all these elements considered, I’d have to say fishing for dogtooth tuna is right up there with my very favorites, so little wonder they were forefront in my mind when we set off to check out a group of unspoiled, uninhabited and un-fished atolls in the middle of the South Pacific! After a short flight with my film crew, Kate and Kyle, we joined the Ultimate Lady – a boat I know well – in Noumea. It was great to be aboard and reacquainted with an elegant lady that holds so many fond memories for me again, and we wasted no time throwing off the ropes to begin our 480-nautical-mile journey to the Chesterfield Islands. The long steam gave me a chance to catch up with Rob, Robbie and Brian, who had joined us as anglers, as well as discuss our angling options with Captain Tom and the crew, James and Ben. All nine of us, with supplies for eleven days and possibly more tackle than many of the larger tackle stores have, had been absorbed effortlessly by the Ultimate Lady. Some liken the space and resources aboard Ultimate Lady to a well-appointed hotel or resort; I liken it more to a small town. With the gear on board you could run a gourmet restaurant, a small hospital, a DVD and CD store, a tackle store and an engineering-supplies store. For trips like this to far-off locations, she is unmatched in design, safety, preparation and crew. I’m sure all on board felt quite privileged as we cruised comfortably across the ocean toward our destination. Finding the dogs During the daylight hours of our 40-hour voyage we set a couple of high-speed lures, and over the course of the trip we caught wahoo and yellowfin tuna. But as we neared the Chesterfields, the bird activity increased, so we slowed to the more regular trolling speed of about eight knots and set a full spread of four marlin lures. On a previous exploratory trip out here, the Ultimate Lady accounted for several blue and black marlin, as the ocean floor rises steeply out of thousands of metres to break the surface, but as we neared the reef we caught only yellowfin tuna, which became a welcome addition to the evening menu. Tom carefully steered us through a gap in the horseshoe-shaped reef that acts as a natural breakwater in the middle of the ocean, and as he surveyed the lagoon for a place to drop anchor, I deployed a Rapala. In places like this almost anything will eat a subsurface lure, but we were hoping for a dogtooth tuna. It took only a minute for the reel to scream into life as a tropical speedster raced away with the lure, and although this eventually revealed itself as a big barracuda, our ‘lure cam’ tape was more promising, showing a dogtooth tuna following the Rapala, only to be beaten to the bite by the big ‘cuda. So in went the Rapala again, and this time we all watched it wobble along on the big plasma screen in the saloon, our ‘lure cam’ showing us real-time images. Soon enough a doggie showed up and buzzed around the Rapala before deciding it was dinner, smashing it in a high-speed, side-on attack. We were all totally fixated on the action showing on the big screen, and as someone said “Rewind it so we can see it again,” the howling noise of the hemorrhaging reel brought us back to ‘reality’. We were hooked up and there was no one on deck – we were all watching ‘lure-cam TV’ – someone had to grab the rod! The first doggie was soon brought to the boat for photos and dispatch. It was a respectable 20kg, but, more significantly, we knew they were here, and we hadn’t really started fishing yet. Dog day The next day brought about a little more prospecting for marlin, but the water was not great, and after catching some more yellowfin we decided to make our way to the edge of the reef to look for dogtooth tuna. Jigging, live baiting and trolling Rapalas and dead baits on downriggers are all effective techniques for hooking up dogtooth, though Tom suggested something a little different – skipping dead baits on the surface. This way we could see the bite, which makes the whole experience that much more exciting and, of course, produces better television. Ben and James materialised with some milkfish from the bait freezers and rigged them on wire leaders. Milkfish are like large shiny mullet, and they flopped and flashed along on the surface in a way that we hoped would entice the dogtooth up to the surface. Like kingfish, doggies spend most of their time in the bottom half of the water column and, also like kingfish, they are found near sharp, jagged reef. So while we like to fish with light tackle wherever possible, the terrain we were fishing and the fish we were targeting commanded respect. Consequently just two baits were set out, one on 24kg and the other on 37kg line, as we prepared our two topside cameras and two ‘lure cams’ to record the action. “On the left!” Before the second bait had made its way up the left ’rigger, Tom’s voice boomed through the loud-hailer: “On the left!” His warning gave us just enough time to swivel around and see a foaming hole where the left ‘rigger bait used to be – we didn’t even have time to get our cameras set! The 24kg line peeled off the Tiagra, and the deep growl of the ratchet gradually raised pitch to a howl as the big doggie ploughed its way toward the reef. I cranked the drag lever to sunset and held on. I had no control and prepared myself for the inevitable ping of the line when the tuna touched down on the sharp coral, but for some reason it turned and ran away along the edge of the reef. Concentrating on my fish and giving a running commentary to the camera, I hadn’t noticed the other bait had been eaten too, and Robbie was now hooked up to an equally tough fish on the 37kg gear. Every second these fish stay attached brings more hope that they can be beaten. By now two minutes had passed and Tom had steered us into deep water, allowing the nerves to settle and for us to begin working the powerful fish towards the surface. “It’s not a dog – it’s a pig!” I saw the silver belly of my doggie coming towards the surface and called out, “It’s a pig!” – a big-game fishing term used to describe a big fish. This ‘pig’ was carefully lip-gaffed and slipped aboard, where I called it for 45-55kg before sliding it back into the water. But the drawn-out fight proved too much for it, and it was unable to swim away. While my fish was retrieved, Robbie’s fish neared the boat, and upon seeing the huge form of its silver belly and blue-grey flank, I called out: “It’s an animal!” (‘Animal’ equals very big fish, so is even bigger than a pig!) The hooks had almost straightened under the strain of the fight, but the big fish was landed and, like my fish, we were unable to release it, so the fish were put on ice for weighing later. Baits were reset for round two, and this time we were ready with the cameras. We were trolling in a circuit approximately the size of two football fields; Tom was turning in from the deep to trail the baits over a shallow reef, offering our cameras the best angle on the baits in relation to the sun to best record the action. I set up inside the saloon to watch the two monitors. On each I could see a skip-bait splashing away at the top of the screen. I had a VHF radio in hand – the plan was to call out “On the left!” or “On the right!” as soon as I saw a fish following one of the baits. My warning would go out to Kate on deck and Kyle in the tower, who were ready to start rolling camera on the bait while I recorded the underwater action. As the boat turned over the shallow ground, I could see the reef below on the monitors, and every time we towed over the drop-off up came the dogs. Some crashed straight in on the baits and prompted me to make a panicked scream “On the right! No! On the left!” Others came up and looked at the tow cameras and followed behind, switching from side to side, becoming more and more agitated as they prepared to strike. All the time I would be running a real-time commentary over the radio: “There are two big fish on the left… One has gone to the right now… He’s looking at the camera… The one on the left is going to eat… Here he comes! Yip, he’s got it! Yee-haaaa!” On deck all cameras and eyes were fixed on the baits as the big dogs smashed into the skip-baits set only 10 metres astern of the boat. As I watched the underwater action of the bites, a loud chorus of “Wahooo!” would resonate from the team on deck, followed by the roar of a Tiagra. On the monitors I could see the dogtooth making a dash for the reef as everyone onboard scrambled into their respective ‘hooked-up’ roles. Lure cameras were hauled in, lines cleared, gimbal belts donned, and cameras rolled on the buckled rods and grunting anglers. This happened over and over again throughout the afternoon as we shot some of the most incredible bite sequences ever, as well as landing some huge doggies. A cunning plan As the bait supply ran low, we devised a new plan to make the dogtooth tuna perform for our cameras. Because the doggies were so interested in our tow cameras, we decided to troll over the reef with no baits in the water, just the cameras. In effect the camera would become a teaser. We trolled our usual circuit and, sure enough, up came a couple of doggies on our ‘teaser camera’. As the call went out that we had raised two big doggies, the camera was hauled in and a two-kilo live tuna was thrown out. But here is where the plan got cunning: the livebait had no hook in it. The line attached to the live bait was run up through the outrigger, and as the hungry doggies lined it up to eat, James heaved on the line and the livie sprang out of the water and away from the lunging jaws of the doggies. This provided us with no end of visual entertainment and great opportunities to film the action as the doggies got more and more worked up trying to eat the elusive leaping tuna. Finally, I cast a popper attached to my Shimano Stella reel loaded with 37kg superbraid and retrieved it past the live-bait teaser. Expecting a crashing bite I held on tight, but the doggies vanished beneath the boat. As my popper reached the boat I stopped winding, and was in the motion of opening the bail arm for another cast when a doggie materialised and ate the popper. All eyes had been trained on the popper when the doggie ate it, and everyone was startled by the speed and ferociousness of the attack – it obviously didn’t like being teased! (A slow-mo look at the footage shows the popper being plucked out of the air!) With 20 kilos of drag pressure cranked up and little more than a metre of braid off the rod tip, the rod was almost ripped from my hands, but eventually, after considerable effort, the doggie was landed and released, and again proved to be in the 55-60kg class. We left this spot completely spent and buzzing from the action, going on to catch more yellowfin, wahoo and even broadbill swordfish at night. But as soon as we had another opportunity on a remote seamount to try for more doggies, we broke out the 80lb (37kg) braid sets and dropped jigs to a place that had probably never seen a lure, let alone a jig. Our jigs were soon nailed, but here we had absolutely no chance of even slowing these fish as they charged to the top of the seamount 75 metres below. We lost 14 jigs in a row and didn’t land a single dogtooth, despite cranking our drags up to the absolute max, the rods pivoting on the side of the boat and anglers kneeling on the deck to prevent being tipped into the water – how those Shimano T-curve rods didn’t snap is beyond me! One jig that didn’t get wasted on the reef was retrieved and perhaps illustrates what we were up against: it was bent like a banana, the split-rings were shot, and the triple-strength hooks were bent and broken. How big these fish were, who can say? But, for the record, the two fish landed on the first day later weighed 58kg, while Robbie’s fish turned out to be a massive 81kg! And we’ve saved the really big ones for next time!
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