Going back to the comments about big bones in New Caledonia. They are there, I have caught them up to 7kg, a friend who lives there reckons he has had them over 10kg/ 1 metre.Somewhere on this forum there is even a photo of me and wife with a big one. I will not post it again as the landmarks are a little too distinctive sorry. they are on the main land and the off shore islands, Google Ouvea island and you will wet your pants over potential.

Basic sparsely tied clousers with moderately heavy eyes can be very useful too. Especially reef outflows and around the edges of deeper coral bombies.

10plb doesnt seem that big to me?, the one i caught was estimated 9lbs and there are definetly bigger out there if you can catch them in the cooks. At twice the size of what I have caught and I have seen them you must be up around the 17/18 plb mark.

Cheers Clark.

Interested to know if the access to the northern flats New Cali is still good, it changes so much hence why guide businesses come and go, the locals get cranky or jealous and tell everyone to shove off. Even with boat access you need to be careful of the locals in places in NC. My wife is from there and even her family are wary of some places. That said there is some mean fishing there. I suspect it is due to westernisation of the nation ie less subsistence fishing occurring compared to many other small island nations. There is also some good GT/ Bluefin trev fishing right in Noumea Town, a good series of marine reserves and some pretty dam good food too.  

FBF,

Now onto crab patterns for triggers & whatnot. Have found the Turneffe Crab to be a simple/fast/cheapish pattern

They look cool Nick, think I'll tie a few of those as well. Not made many inroads into tying yet for CI, was a bit too social at night in GB. Think we tied a total of 6 or 8 YEM patterns for the kings all up. :) So have bought heaps of gear back to the Philippines to fill in my nights.

Awesome! Seriously good looking water there Mike

Gotta love that water, great stuff.