http://www.nadifishingcharters.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCl54Tk-hZc

My charter was a pre-arranged share cost trip and I was asked to turn up at the Marina at 9am. Late the night before I was rung and told "make it 7.30am", which was fine because I was chomping at the bit. So I got there at 7.30am as requested, only the skipper was nowhere to be found. His off-sider was though, and told me that two of the other share-costers had pulled out, and i'd need to pay double (along with the only other reamaining guy). Still chomping at the bit I said "OK", but they had to work hard to convince the other guy (another Kiwi). Eventually, at 8.30am, the skipper showed up and then took his sweet time loading the boat. Finally we're on our way, and despite all this i'm still positive and chomping at the bit. By this stage just excited just be on the way out of the marina.

 

Well I thought we were - just as we approached the open sea we turn and yes...we're on the way to fill up with gas. Finally making it to the front of the queue half an hour later we're full up and finally on our way. Then the fishing actually started, and as i've already related it was very slow. Gear was pretty ordinary and prep was not what i'd expect - cheap popper rods with rings rusted out and leader knots breaking on the cast. God forbid a GT was actually hooked on that gear!

 

I don't do a lot of boat charters so I'm not best placed to compare, but to me this was up to the standard i'd expect in NZ. I thought i'd chosen a decent operator (certainly looked more onto it than many others there). But I don't want to totally bag them because it was clear that they tried and struggled to find the $$ to plough back into the business. Take home lesson for me was to do my homework and not always expect the earth.

 

Cheers

Andy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fishing gear was pretty stuffed, a couple of senators and an old international. The lures had been chewed something fierce by toothy wahoo.

 

Just outside the reef we picked up a small spanish mack. Things were quiet for a while, we were about to head for home when I spotted a workup about 1 nm away. We headed to the birds and nek minnut a 13 kg mahi!! I then spotted what I thought was a stick pointing out of the water. It turned out it was a transmitter on a surface longline. The Fijian crew promptly cut it off and hauled it on board, muttering something about the f*** longliners are taking all the fish. The crew opened up the transmitter to find it was full of D cell batteries, well they thought it was christmas. On the way in we pulled another small wahoo..

 

As I was staying in a self catered villa I really wanted a slab of mahi to take home. The crew wouldn't have a bar of it (some arrangement they had with the resort restaurant) so I grabbed a rusty bait knife and helped myself to a slab of mahi. When we got back to the dock, the crew wanted ME to carry the catch to the restaurant as this was tonights catch of the day!!!

 

Because the whole trip was such a debacle they charged me half the going rate. Crap trip? Hell No! - 10 years on I still have fond memories of it.

IMHO...if you go again...grab yourself a skippy at the fish market at nadi..saw a white snapper there(pretty cool)....garfish over there as well....Next time mate