hey guys...
just came back from 8 days out at fiji, staying around pacific harbour 2 1/2 hours drive from nadi... the weather seemed to be consistantly blowing 10-25 knots of onshore wind so there was no fishing to be had in the first couple of days as i was waiting for the wind to go down... however after waiting for a few days it hit me that maby it wouldn't so i went down to the beach and had a few casts from the breakwater into pearl harbour... a couple of casts with a shiny berkley swimming mullet thing ended up with a baby barracuda and a couple of followers behind the lure which resulted in a splash and a couple of lost tails. nothing too spectacular. tried a couple of lure skirts which of2fsh had given me and had a couple of followers but no takers... thought i should of had a popper but since i didn't have one when i got home i had a look around and found some wine corks and with a bit of kiwi managed to make a popper out if it by threading some line through the cork and then attaching a skirt to it..
the next couple of days were fairly uneventful just relaxing around swimming and lazing in the sun, i tried to hook up with a few locals to get out fishing but that never eventuated and it was nearing close to the end of the trip when i thought **** i need to get out and do some proper fishing... so i went down to the resort and booked a 3 hour trip with another keen fisho for early the next morning.
woke up at 5.30 and was out on the water nice and early around 6, the wind was right down with only the slightest of breeze and things were looking good. the boat was real nice, a proper centre console game fishing fiberglass sport fishing boat with twin 150 mercs on the back, the guy who i was fihsing with, dave was real keen, and had been fishing around the islands for the last 2 weeks surfing and fishing and had caught some big GT's and spanish mackrel ect...
our destination was for a series of reefs 12 nautical miles offshore called the frigates...
once we got there the lures were in the water and within ten minutes we got our first strike. it was on daves rod and he was hoooked up big time

line was peeling off the reel but because we were close to the reef he gave it all he had and within a minute a nice wahoo was beside the boat.
the lure was a rapala x-rap with heavy duty split rings and strong game hooks, this was the lure of the day by a mile and caught ALL the fish.
only took another 30 minutes and the next strike happened on the same rod, same lure and dave pulled in a nice spanish mackrel... sweet as, but no fish for me.. I needed to get a fish, I NEEDED IT BAD.. after getting GIVEN a light game rod from forum member cod and spending a lot of money on braid, mono, windon leaders, lures and hooks i needed to get a fish. however despite the fact that i had 3 rods out one with a marlin lure on it, one with a rapala cd18, and one with a small williamson wahoo skirted lure... not one of them got bitten, eventually dave gave up one of his rapala x-raps to me but that didn't make a difference and the next fish was pulled up by him on his shiney taigra 50, a nice coral cod which put up more of a fight than the spanish mackrel. a feisty little bugger it was too.
on the way back to base we stopped off at a dogtooth tuna jigging spot of the skippers and i went hardout with the jigs but didn't even get a hit.
oh well, i've got some fish for tea and i was glad that dave got a big wahoo.. that's fishing i suppose, i surely must be in line for some better luck next time i go fishing.


i went fishing one more time off the break water and hooked up to what i thought was a nice trevally who ripped off some line before the hook pulled, then hooked up to a fish and my knot broke
then began to pull in a small trevally, a small barracuda and a coral cod or something like that.

it was a great holiday all in all... the fish weren't with me this time, but next time i will come back better armed with loads of rapala x-rap lures and wire traces.
cheers, levi

sp's yep definately... the basstrix anchovie paddle tails were getting monstered, but after loosing a few of them due to the toothy critters of the reef it was too pricey, the gulps seemed to work... but biggest tip for casting sp's from the shore is SMALL.. i bought too many 7' and 6' and big grub tails and stuff and not enough small stuff. 5' is a good length, small is good, most of the fish you will get won't be monsters. and a big trev will take a small sp easy as.

this colour of the x-rap is the BOMB.

talking to dave who had spent heaps of time fishing over there, he says that skirted lures certainly don't work as well as bibbed ones, in fact he always trolls a skirted lure with him and all he has got on it is a small spanish mackrel.
he said that anything deep diving with a white bottom and a dark top is EXCELLENT>

churr goin to fiji is great fun anyway ,the fishin is a bonus and havin a cuple nice quiet"yamahas"(how could you call them mercs)even betterbet you wished ya had more than 3 hours on board!

Thanks for the good read Levi. I know how you feel when everyone else seems to be getting the fish, but that is a good excuse to go back again for some unfinished business.

Great report Levi, shame you missed out on the fish, a Big GT would have been awesome, next time mate

Whizz: the charter was the best value for money that i have ever had... was $100 per hour for the boat, we went out for 3 hours but actually that was closer to 4 and a half hours and still only got charged for the 3 hours, which came total to about $150 per person, and considering we went 12 miles off shore i thought that was pretty darn good value for money.
and yeha, wahoo sashimi rocks aye... we made a wicked island kokoda dish with some of it, damn it was good.
where abouts are ya staying mate?

the charter boat was booked through the pearl resort, which is in pacific harbour... wasn't really expecting much because have heard some dodge stories about booking fishing trips through resorts but it was fine.
and yep, would be best to bring your own gear, they have rods and reels but i wouldn't trust them too much... you can see how empty that penn was in the second shot ... the skipper who took us out was called Net... but you just book it through the resort and you should be fine, ask him to take you out to the frigates, man it's insane out there...

"WISH I HAD A POPPER"  did you look in that box of jigs i gave you ???? thier was a red popper in thier ..... never mind mate, you had a great time and learnt a thing or two for next time...NOW HURRY UP AND PUT UP THE PHOTOS OF THE HOTTIES

lol mercs

thanks guys...

bit of a grumble from me, went to go and open my rods from the plane which i had wrapped in foam to discover that the first guide bottom half (shimano half) of my synit starlo hybrid has a munched up guide... can't even bear thinking what's happened to the blank of the rod... **** it. next time must get a good rod holder to transport the rods, come to think of it i've got a bunch of ovc pipe downstairs that would of been perfect....