Vanuatu Trip

Spent 12 days in Vanuatu with the family. Got to do some fishing as well. Vanuatu is an amazing place, friendly locals and some great fishing potential. I went out with Wild Blue fishing charters one morning and later did some land based for about 4 half days. I did a bit of research before I left but didn’t have much time to prep as it was all a last minute planned trip.  Had a good yarn with Pete Phillips of Wild Blue who is almost the longest running charter business in VAT.

http://www.nautilus.com.vu/fishing.htm

The game fishing is pretty good close in, the week before I was there they caught a wahoo in between the channel markers in the harbour and have hooked sailfish there too. It was too rough the morning I was out to head out to the FAD but we trolled around the harbour. The FAD is 8 miles out, and a large 300kg + Blue climbed onto one of the lures between the island and the FAD the month before. I saw a wahoo jump over our lures, saw schools of flying fish and we landed some small mack tuna and did a bit of reef fishing. The premiere trip sounds like the multi day trip out to Epi where they troll the marlin highway to a group of islands and target everything from marlin-yellowfin to wahoo GTs and dogtooth. Sounds pretty amazing.  Most his business is repeat so his clients are pretty happy with the fishing they get there.

Wahoo like this lure apparently.

A mack tuna hooked 100 meters from the shore.

Sami, one of Pete’s charter guys whispered a bit of LBG intel my way of a ledge on deep water. Not far from Port Vila. I did 4 trips to this ledge and managed to encounter 4 dog tooth tuna.  Land access must be sought, and treated with great respect the land and fish belong to the locals..... I noticed the locals can look a bit intimidating however simply smile and be friendly and it is quickly reciprocated in warm and genuine ways.....

Dog tooth tuna survivor (for 24hrs at least)

The dog tooth are so intelligent that they can read writing on the lures, anything with ‘Heru’ written on it was pretty much dog tucker–Skipjack, Wahoo & Ulua’s all got taken…. For good.

On the first morning I did a lot of spinning with metals but finally switched to PE7 stickbait gear and tied on the Heru Skipjack for a GT. After 20 minutes of cast and retrieve The lure was 35 yards from the ledge when a fish leapt full out of the water with my lure in its mouth. It was like a kingfish with a larger head and greenish back and white silver flanks. It dived when I hooked it and I managed to muscle it closer to my feet  but I felt the twisty leader snap first one strand then the other. I didn’t have a bite leader attached which I really regretted. Think I was still in island mode when I set it up. It would have gone maybe 13-15kg. Tied on another lure, this time a wahoo. 10 minutes later a bigger (20-25kg) fish grabbed it off the surface and dived. I had a 65lb twisty on and was running about 10-12kg of drag. It ran deep for about 10 yards when I slowed it, it shook its head then burst again and I tightened the drag a bit and it slowed then burst again but the maxima leader parted right at the join where the braid/cats paw was attached. This was unacceptable gear failure. I wasn’t particularly happy. No more action. I fished the next day and had one follow, this time a fish closer to 30kg. It was pretty awesome to see what looked like a part of the ocean break off, swam up to my lure which was sitting 3 yards from my feet and engulf it. The fish had grabbed it by the head of the lure and missed the hook. Despite some great looking water I didn’t hook anything pelagic spinning metals. Was hoping for a wahoo or tuna or dolphin but didn’t raise anything. One bus driver I spoke to said oct-dec was better fishing and that I was fishing in the slow season. Pete at Wild Blue has compiled a seasonal fish chart which looked like there were fish around at the time. There were lots of juvenile YFT up until a few weeks before, perhaps if I had been earlier there might have been a better chance for a YFT.

Few days later went out again, I tried an afternoon fishing but the dog tooth were only hitting in the morning about 7-8am.  I was getting hits on my raider lures, but not hooking up. I thought I saw a wahoo jump one day but after casting in its direction I hooked a fat long tom. It jumped and threw the hook. I tried targeting Long Tom with a small grim reaper lure and hooked a long tom but after a dive and then jump 4 feet out of the water it bit through the 40lb tough trace. My last day on the rocks I was patiently pulling in a stick bait when another solid doggie around 20kg smashed my lure. It felt the hook and swung its head. The reel gave up a little line but then the braid broke. I was running 65lb TUF line and had just tied a sweet bimini so I was suffering some intestinal bleeding over that one. No way it should have given way with 10-12kg of drag.

The ledges were difficult to land fish from, fingers of coral with deep drop offs.

Deadly but Friendly sea snake.

The water was very warm, spent lots fo time snorkelling with the family. Hideaway Island is a great place for seeing reef fish etc. My son took bread out and got ambushed by hungry reef fish. A few took a bit of skin off him trying to go for the bread. The tropical coloured fish are really something else.... I took my underwater case case for my compact and got some good shots

 

I spent a bit of time casting lures around the lagoon near Hideaway, there is a sand bar extending out towards the island that you can walk out to, casting towards deeper water in the lagoon and what looks like reef about 60-70 yards out. I Had a couple of hits but no hook up but when I cast toward the island over the reef patch I hooked up and was half way back when the hook pulled. It was pulling hard on 30lb braid so it could have been a couple of kgs whatever it was. I also walked along the shore and about 400 meters around saw the dark colour of a reef about 80 meters from shore. I managed to hit the edge of the reef and got a bump but again but no hook up.  I met a family and the guy said they were staying at a resort further along the shore again (heading towards Devils point) and that some spearos had seen sailfish on the edge of the reef a couple of hundred meters in front of the resort. Here's hideaway in the background.

 

 

 

It was a little disappointing not really landing anything decent. I saw one nice GT, on the crest of a large wave close in to shore. he was about 20-25kg. The waves were dangerous on that part of the coast so I kept walking.

There were all kinds of cool marine life, there were blow holes and caves under some parts of the ledges.

  

 

For other cool stuff to do, definitely go to Mele Cascades, amazing bush & river walk.

 

The island tour is also good. There are tour companies however tehre are a lot of bus drivers who will take you round also, they are a bit cheaper but you may not get as much cultural exposure.

 

This was a friendly native spider. I volunteered to have it crawl up my hand while my son & wife screamed and ran away....

A real tropical paradise...

 

I did manage to hook some coral trouty kind of fish and on my last day I fished a reef with a minnow lure, first cast it got thumped in the wash, I lost about 5 meters of 30lb braid and then the coral caused separation anxiety...

 

The markets are a must....

 

I asked ahead to see if my son could play with a local team and he got to play for Port Vila East school. It was a draw so they went to penalty shoot out and he scored one of the goals.....

 

Only a few of the boys had boots or gear but man could they play, its all they do after school, only saw one overweight kid and he played football (pretty good too). At 5-6pm everyone is out on teh fields playing sport, no one is inside playing on the computer....

What was pretty cool was that even though most locals live in 3rd world conditions the crime is still very low. I was pretty convicted to see people who had so much less than myself but they kept their dignity, had no sense of feeling sorry for themselves. As one local girl said 'we just get on with it'.....

I would certainly rate it as a great fishing destination, for game fihsing and LBG.... may have to do a bit more research on best time of year to go there to try and hook more pelagic fish off teh rocks, year round its pretty much gauranteed game fishing......