The travel bug

It is not hard to see how easy it is to fall in love with distant lands.

Thirty-five years ago, the late Steve Sneddon and I climbed aboard a Canadian Air jet bound for Vancouver. That was the first leg of a whirlwind trip through British Columbia. We stopped off in Fiji and had time to hire a taxi to take us to the water where we could rig our collapsible rods and try for some species previously unknown to us, like threadfin salmon, cute little trevally and some mean looking sharks.

Our total catch for the afternoon was one queenfish that took my small hex wobbler. It was used as a livebait for the sharks that were coming and going where we were. They were not interested and were quite safe even if we had hooked one on our little spin gear.

Vancouver was a real eye-opener with its huge size and yet a clean image and friendly people. We were soon off over the water in a much smaller plane heading for Vancouver Island, dropping in to deliver passengers here and there before eventually landing into Port Hardy, the venue for the World Salmon Fishing Champs, at the northern end of the island. The next day we would be representing New Zealand. The three-day comp was a fantastic event. Breakfast at 3am, then down to our allotted boats at four and we were off to the salmon-rich waters to the north of the island. I learned so much there.

Their fishing was different to ours with cut herring being trolled through herring schools that went from the surface to the bottom for hundreds of metres. We caught plenty of salmon and I was lucky enough to catch the second biggest at around 11.4kg (25lb). I was nudged off the top by a Japanese entrant by a few grams.

Following this trip, we went north on the mainland to Aneheim Lake, only accessible by float plane at that time. Our accommodation was in a quaint lodge on the lake shore. We were told that the fishing was hard, and the other guests were getting just a few fish a day. Taking a boat and our fly rods, we treated the lake like we would have any New Zealand lake the same size.

The result was a blinder, but we couldn’t even talk about our catch at dinner. Long-faced Americans had little to report and we didn’t want to spoil their dinner with the fact that we caught 64 trout that day.

It wouldn’t have helped them anyway. They just went back to dragging their cow bell lures, Ford Fenders and drowned worms around and around with little success. Our fish were caught on Woolly Buggers fished along the weed bed edges, and for a furious hour-and-a-half, with suspended midge pupae patterns that got smashed as they sunk. The fish were long, hungry rainbows that were feeding hard as the ice had just cleared from the lake.

We fished the mighty Atnarko River from a Mackenzie River drift-boat with a guide named Darwin, and had an interesting day, seeing but not catching salmon while having a ball with dolly varden (a type of char) and a few rainbows.

The next overseas adventure was to Hawaii to report on the Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament in Kona on the big island. What a great place! Limpid tropical waters lap the shore by the main street and bluefin trevally were hitting the bait so hard that they were splashing people walking along the footpath. I melted a pair of jandals the first day and had to buy some local sandals that I thought might burst into flame at any time. The ground was black lava and you couldn’t dilly dally when moving from one shade tree to the next. The fishing was just as hot.

I was with Sam Mossman and we were allocated a game boat. Not to fish from, but to take photos of the fleet in action. We followed the fleet out from Kona wharf and waited to hear of any action. The first came just minutes later.

A boat had hooked up less than a kilometre from the wharf and we were only five minutes away. We stooged around the boat with the marlin on and took some great shots of the action and watched as the fish was finally subdued and hauled aboard. At 750lb it was one of the bigger blue marlin taken that day.

Our skipper asked what else we wanted to do. Sam and I looked at each other. Our brief was to get some pics and report on the results. We had done that already and it wasn’t even lunch time. ‘Want to fish?’ was the next question, followed by: ‘we are going to anyway’. Press boats were told not to fish just in case they caught a fish that the high-paying anglers on the flash boats could have had. Anyway, we had no say so watched the deckies run a couple of lures on 50lb tackle. We worked south away from the fleet into an area called Captain Cook. The next twenty minutes saw us run over three shortbill spearfish that the skipper didn’t see and witnessed the arrival of the biggest school of yellowfin I had seen before, or since for that matter. We trolled our lures through them from all angles. Then I looked back at the lures and saw two fish jumping.

They were both about the same size, one a yellowfin and the other a marlin. A minute later one rod folded over and the line screamed out. “Who’s turn” I called to timekeeper Sam, ‘Yours’ he said generously, even though I was a minute inside time to swap over. The marlin jumped seven times then went deep, dragging the line after him. After and hour’s stalemate the fish came jumping like it had just been hooked. Neither Sam nor I had caught a marlin before, so it was quite a thrill as the deckies eventually brought it aboard.

We smuggled it in to Honokohau Harbour north of Kona, but we were seen and sprung for fishing from a press boat. My defence was that we had no say in the matter.

A few years later I flew into Honiara in the Solomon Islands on the first of several trips. There I added to my species list with spanish mackerel, giant trevally, mangrove jacks, trumpet fish, mackerel tuna and others. The most exciting was one of the smallest – several archer fish that I took on dry flies. It was absorbing fishing, sight casting to the surface feeders in a tropical jungle. Royal Wulff flies did the trick.

Tonga took up several years as I helped running a dogtooth tuna fishing charter service out of Lifuka in the middle of the island chain. It was here that I saw the ultimate “middle finger” given by a fish. We had a dogtooth hotspot that we fished not far from the north end of Foa Island. The water straight off the reef was scary deep.

We ran out wide and caught a couple of skipjack tuna, then bridle-rigged them on the 50lb gear as enticing live baits, deployed via the downriggers. We tootled along twenty metres from the coral drop off with the baits down fifty metres.

We never had to wait long here. Both were taken almost straight away, and the reels screamed. “Double hookup” I yelled to the skipper, so he knew what was going on. One stopped running and came to the surface. It turned out to be a fat 10kg coral trout perfect for the client’s dinner. The other line never stopped, it never slowed either as it angled down into the mysterious depths. Our customer never got the rod out of the holder. We couldn’t back up because the line was running straight down, the rod was well-loaded, and I didn’t like to let up on the drag. At about 600 metres with the line load on the reel looking decidedly depleted I touched the drag up a bit but it made no difference. We ran off but that didn’t change anything and ten minutes later we were back by the drop-off with the line spearing out of sight into the depths. When the line parted and the rod sprung upright we guessed that the fish had run in under the drop-off and the leader had hit some coral. Talk about done like a dinner!

Over all travels I have kept a mental list of species and it is staggering, particularly in the tropics. My favourite place now is Christmas Island, home of a billion bonefish. But it’s not just bones there are over 500 species to chase.

If you get hooked on fishing travel relax and enjoy it. The different places people and fish are fascinating.