Fishing the Soloman islands

The Solomons are a far-flung group of islands spread over 800,000 square kilometres of sea. The archipelago ranges from steep, jungle-covered peaks to tiny sand cays and active volcanoes. Before I first visited the group in May 1995 I knew little about the region, and twenty years ago a great deal of the nation of nearly 1000 islands had seen little rod and line fishing. 

Before that first trip I had a mental image of dark, brooding islands haunted by a history of headhunting, slave-trading and the bloodbaths of World War Two. And then there was the civil strife of a dozen years ago. With a background like this, you could forgive the locals if they were sullen or aggressive, but up in the unspoiled Western Province nothing could be further from reality.

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The people are happy and friendly, the fabulous natural beauty still blows me away, and the diversity of habitat and fish life is such that you could go from blue-water trolling to reef fishing, then estuarine habitat and into freshwater river fishing, within five minutes’ running in a longboat.

One of the blokes I had met on my first trip was local man Tasker, and as I watched Zipolo Habu Resort’s flash new sport-fishing boat arrive to pick us up from Fatboys Jetty (see part one of this story in the July edition), there he was on the bow. He was older, greyer (aren’t we all) and the mop of dreadlocks was gone, but still the same quiet, genial bloke from years gone by.

My companions – Aussie fishing journalists Dave Randle and Stefan Hansson – and I loaded our gear, and with Tasker’s offsider Norman at the helm we headed south along the island chain, stopping to throw a few poppers as we went. Designed especially for sportfishing the Solomons, the eight-metre Ramonalola was built in Matamata, New Zealand, by Allenco’s Harvey Allen in collaboration with Stu ‘Captain Asparagus’ Cawker (for more, see this boat reviewed on p108-109 of our November 2014 edition). Powered by twin Suzuki outboards, it is ideally suited to tropical sportfishing. 

The initial drizzle cleared to a hot, blue-sky day. We passed Kennedy Island (Plum Pudding or Kasolo Island), named for an incident in WWII when the torpedo boat PT 109, commanded by then-Lieutenant (and later US President) John F. Kennedy, was rammed and sunk by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri. Captain and crew managed to swim to the island and were later rescued with the help of local men.

We island-hopped through a maze of white-sand cays, glittering shallow clear-water flats, deep blue channels, and dozens of perfect isles with their verdant jungle capped by coconut palms and backed by the towering volcano of Kolombangara. Dave managed to popper up a pair of gorgeous bluefin trevally, but I was under-gunned when a GT nailed my light tackle, so paid the usual price.

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We pulled into the jetty at Zipolo Habu Resort on Lola Island just in time for lunch. Zipolo refers to a local tree, the leaves of which are considered a good luck charm, while Habu means fishing. So the name can be loosely translated as ‘good luck fishing’. 

Joe Entrikin (an ex-pat American) and his wife Lisa (a local lady) built the resort with fishing clients in mind. When I first washed up there a couple of decades ago I fell in love with the place. It was pretty basic then; the rooms were traditional style ‘leaf haus’, built up off the ground and thatched with sago palm leaf. Kerosene lanterns provided light and bathing was accomplished with a bucket at a freshwater well. We slept under mosquito nets but the food was good and the drinks were cold.

In a situation like that, you start to realise just how few of the trappings of civilisation are important. But now the home comforts are available at Zipolo too, with beautifully finished new waterfront units offering all the mod cons: electricity, kitchen, shower, fans and comfortable beds. There is even a modest tackle shop. Luxury in paradise!

Joe and Lisa met us at the jetty. Like Tasker and I they were older and greyer, and their three daughters – just little kids when I was last there – are now adults, some with kids of their own. 

The bar was just as I remembered it, and off the jetty were hordes of baitfish and small predators, including a group of ‘tame’ black-tip sharks. These last are a small, relatively timid species and no risk to swimmers. 

After a great seafood lunch and a couple of cold Solbrews we were back out on the water, zipping across the expansive Vona Vona Lagoon to mountainous Rendova Island. This used to be a bit of an expedition in the old longboats, but Ramonalola just ate it, providing speed and comfort, and we were soon throwing poppers in the late afternoon light.

The Solomons region is an important commercial tuna fishery, and years ago fishing was mostly done by pole boats. To attract tuna to the boats required large amounts of chum in the form of baitfish. The tuna operation would supply this need by anchoring generator boats with big lights in the lagoons overnight, then run a seine net around the assembled baitfish at dawn. This practice really thinned out the inshore baitfish numbers, and consequently the inshore predators.

These days, most of the tuna fishing is done offshore with longlines, and without the constant netting, populations of baitfish have increased, as have the numbers of inshore predatory species – the species mostly targeted by anglers. 

Our poppers therefore produced a number of GTs, bluefin trevally, red bass and a few missed strikes, including a Spanish mackerel, its aggressive charge taking it high into the air when it missed the popper. 

The temperature and humidity was high, and Stef commented, “Popper fishing in the Solomons is like doing press-ups in a sauna!”

The next morning was to be our last in the Solomons. We made the most of it and were back out on the water at 6am, electing to explore some of the local rivers for estuarine species. Despite its eight-metre length, Ramonalola has been designed with a shallow draught for inshore work and had no trouble navigating the shallows. I’d not brought the light bait-casting tackle I normally favour for this sort of fishing, so made do with my light popper rig, while the others cast small minnows and soft plastics. The result was a wide range of species: in addition to the expected mangrove jacks, there were decent sleepy cod (which belied their name by belting my popper on the surface), barracuda, archerfish, several types of trevally, and tropical snappers, totalling ten species from one creek alone.

I guess that last morning typified what fishing the Solomons is all about: endless variety in beautiful surroundings. You never really know what you are going to hook next – a rough count of the species we caught came to over 20, which is not bad for a once-over-lightly trip using only lures and not venturing out into the offshore or deep bottom fisheries. Things are really looking up for adventurous anglers wanting to explore the 1000 islands.

 

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   This article is reproduced with permission of   
New Zealand Fishing News

August 2015 - by Sam Mossman
Re-publishing elsewhere is prohibited

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