Got up here wondering if I had enough stuff on hand to do all the things I want to do, then opened the cases of gear I have left here from before and sent up in containers recntly, and boy, I am a schmuck.... I have TONS of everything! It is kinda like xmas!

Well, enjoy the weather down there in NZ guys, damn it is hot up here! :-)

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh...... nice. Love it here (gloat gloat gloat.....)

Chucked out a little Wide-glide, a little 5in one, not the big ones, after some baitfish had been mugged,and a big bluefin trev barrelled up out of no-where and engulfed it! Medium (30lb) spin set just couldn't slow it down, so we piled into one of the boats moored at the jetty and with one of the guys paddling on the bow, we tried to follow it. We only got about 20m from the wharf, but in clear water, free of the various moooring bouys etc, when the trev pooped out onto the surface... with a shark holding it in the middle, then another 2 or three small blacktips just piled over each other to monster it. Much white water and no lure any more. Eeek! Bugger! So, Mark at gourocks, if you read this, pleaseplease send me some more of them! (I only had 2, and now only 1 left, eek!)

Bit of a bugger, so I continued my project, tied on a R2C Doggie to see how that looked, first cast (this time on a proper popper casting set) , hey-di-ho, biff it out (this is about 10 mins later), and first bloody cast, wham! Another one, this time a slender trev, but not bad size 6kg, I was moderately extremely chuffed to finally land a creditable trev off the wharf here! :-)

turns out to be a Tille Trevaly I think.
So, now I am a little more confident of the effectiveness of the stickbaits, I am keen to give them a decent crack on the munda bar tomorrow. Roll on brother! :-)

We did have rain here too, for those who feel agrieved... however, half an hour later, she is sunny, hot, and bloody beautiful here again! :-)

So, no pics til I get home though..... in 3 weeks.

Said Hi to Joe for you Steve, and to Taska. I hope to head off to Bobae village in a couple of days and deliver the stuff for the school kids over there. Man, it is gonna be a full boat that trip.... bins of school books, balls, water tanks and all  the other stuff we have sent up in the last 3 containers will finally get delivered! :-)

 

Try googling Munda  or Gizo, Solomon Islands. Youll see the general area. The island due west of Lola is Parara. North is Kohinggo, and south about 10 miles off is Rendova. I can't load pics etc here, so if you put up a screen cap from google earth (as long as that is not breaching copyright), I will show you the place.

Guys just back from the fad.... 2 mahimahi, baracuda, 3 yellowfin and lost a BIG yfin coz the halco broke in half! Guess where I am gonna go tomorrow!

 

 

edit:... Joe ( the owner) has just given me the gps co-ords for the jetty.... S 8 deg, 18' 28", E 157 deg, 09' 55". There ya go!

Dave I found it by looking for the "Vona vona lagoon 

If you post anything about chillied mudcrabs or fresh squid bar snacks or or anything nice up there your dead Capt

Went to the fads today, beaut weather, and couldn't catch anything decent coz the skippies were everywhere, and when we did hook up on a yft, all we wound up with was a head...blooody sharks! Wahoo abbreviated one lure and took the swivel out of another dammit.

Still was fun for 3 three hours, then we cruised back to munda bar for some poppering....well, stickbaiting for me.

Bagged a very nice red bass on one nice new lure, ChrisW, they work mate!

After a relaxing arvo at the resort, Joe and I headed out for an evening fish thru the diamond narrows. tied on the gold r2c doggie I have mentioned elsewhere, chucked it into the first bunch of baitfish, whammo! Nice 15lb gt! Cool! At the same time Joe got a nice 4kg bluefin trev too, so we were well chuffed.

Well, I am chuffed  and stuffed, had dinner and off to the scratcher for the nite...cheers all,

 

Just cannot get nough of the sea here. The deepest blue you can imagine, we were bowling along Parara with about 1m swells slowly rolling thru to crash into the cliffs, the contrast of the tropical green jungle on the cliff tops, the pure white spray of hte waves and the deep blue water really just makes you go "woah!"

Today made an excursion across to the Haipei Lagoon/reef area, on the NNW tip of Rendova Island. 3 gts in the bin, plus a couple of bluefin and a queenie on light spin stuff at kurukuru island. Again, lotsa fun, and just drop-dead gorgeous scenery.

Fishing tackle testing is one of hte things I am quite keen on this trip. I have taken a pile of diff toys to play with, all have worked, but with varying degrees of sucess I feel.

Firstly though, the next person that  tells me they reckon braid is as good for constant repeted casting as Fireline needs their flamin head read. After casting for 3 days,,,, and up here that means constant work, not the odd flick here and there... I had three..., no, sorry, four, humungous wind=knots in the braid, so I said sod it, and spooled up one of the reels (I have 2 new quantum boca80 reels here this time) with 30lb fireline. All day casting not a hitch, not a problem. As far as I am concerned, if you are planning on serious casting all day... use fireline. Save yourself some heartache and blood-pressure!

Next, the stickbaits.

OK, I have been giving these a fair crack, and shall continue to do so. I have certainly taken fish on all of the different ones so far now, so they DO do the job.

However, I have to say, they are nowhere near as visually sstimulating as the poppers. Half the time you cannot really even see where the damn things are, unlike poppers, whic by their nature announce their presence as loudly as you can imagine, so your attention is always focussed right THERE, where the lure is. To my mind, this makes it way way more appealing fishing. For a comparisson...hmmmm.... compare nymphing for trout in a stream to fishing a deep sinker line in a river mouth at night. Both catch fish, both are enjoyable, but the buzz you get from placing and watching the lure being taken is juswt so much higher then waiting for an anonymous strike.

Well, Joe and i are heading out for anotehr arvos jaunt now, see if we cant find some more popper/stickbait action before dinnertime... cheers all,

Stu.

Oh, PS, ChrisW, those toys.... getting better all the time, bloody good!

The R2C doggies took a pounding, lost 2 of them, the one I miss is the beaut golden one, damn, wish I had more!

  That goldie is gonne! The silver blue is chewed up too now.

Went thru Noro, around the the lighthouse on kolombangara, and first cast into baitfish, and blammo, a nice red bass nailed a R2C wideglide. Very pleasing, especially as the whole thing, cast, hook-up and landing was all on video!

Picked up some nice fish, spanish mack and a big highfin coraltrout trolling halco sorcerers along the edge of the blackett straits until we got to Double Island, found more baitschools over the bommie and the reef passes, and it was all on again.

 Highfin Coral trout, pretty much in the same place as I got mine today. Better model though!

Came home with 4 GTs all on stickbaits, and lost another three (did I say dammit yet? Well, Dammit!)

Well, enough for now, time to hit the hay!

Tied on a small pencil popper, started working along the sandy drop-offs, had a few hits from cudas and longtoms, so flicked out behind me towards some bommies in deeper water, and whammo! BIG red bass (6kg or so), mate, made the ol' spagetti rod bend! :-) Kept working the bommies, bagged another one of 3kg or so, had hits from more, plus follows up from coral trouts and other bits... it was a blast. All in still calm weather, in just the most stunning scenery you can imagine. Damn this place is beautiful.

after three hours or so, wandered back to the resort, and picked up Joe to head into Munda Airport to pick up Lisa, Joes wife, home from a rep. trip o'seas.

 Of course we allowed an extra hour or so to stray up the  pukpuku mangroves area...and picked up 4 nice mangrove jacks, we only kept the one or Lisa's dinner treat tonight, chinese style baked Mangrove Jack, apparently delish if you like fish.

Another great day in paradise!

 

P.s More pics!

Like he said 

Jenno got 12 mantis shrimps the day before I got here, but she is back this weekend, so will try to get vid ans u/w vid of the process, it is indeed interesting!

 

I must admi it though, I came here thinking that these stickbaits may work, but surely not as well as poppers. Well OK people, I may have been wrong. I think they are definitely as good as poppers, if different.

I only have R2C Doggies and Wideglides left now, and have found them to be deadly. Landed 4 GTs and a red bass, dropped a couple others and had many more hits on them today, which is excellent for up here. Even better, some of the hits have been spectacular whitewater shots, hopefully all on video. Can't wait to get home and check the footage out, I hope Taska has managed to get them on film!

I have found the doggies have a different action and need a different technique from other stickbaits, working best with just short jabs that move the lure maybe a metre at most, not the big long sweeps other types seem to need. Means the lure stays in the strike zone for a longer time too, which helps.

Wideglides have a slightly longer sweep, but not the huge rod action you see on vidcaps on the net.

 

I think that if casting blind, I still prefer the poppers, they are more visual and give yo something to watch, which doesn't work on sbaits, however, if casting around baitpods, then I think the sbaits may now be my preferred lure!

I suspect the action is fine, but mainly that if you belt a couple of poppers thru and area, it may alarm fish as much as entice them, while sbaits, being much less ....raucous... on the surface, tend to not unsettle and upset the fish, so we get repeated and multiple hitss from each baitpod, instead of , as with poppers, one hit only generally.

Anyhow, dinner is ready now, so gotta go! :-)

But remember, Kesoko's watching

Lazy day today, as we are going to the fad at 6.00 am (ish) tomorrow, so just returned to the patches of reef behind bikiki. Another red bass and a golden trev, lotsa fun, worked our way over to the munda bar, and it was totally glassy. Saw baitfish, dropped a Doggie in and sure enough, another little gt, sweet.

Looked over the side into the super-clear water, and 10m down, a huge school of mid-nite snapper with red bass mixed in among them, so out with the u/w camera ovr the side of the boat, and watched these very cool fish. Imagine a school of maomao, but 10 times bigger. Saw a real big Spanish mackerel swimming thru them as well, just so damn cool it is hard to descride. Moved off to biff a lure at more bait 100m off, and a big baracuda smacked the lure, did a huge cartwheel outa the water before spitting the hook.... damnn, I love fishing in the tropics! :-)

Cruised on back home to recharge cam batts and try to clear out some of the unwanted clips off the 8gb SD chips the vid cam uses, to my horror I am on my 3rd and last one already, and am only just a week into the darn trip! Eek! Still, biting the bullet and scrubbing a lot of useless footage has freed up a ton of space, so all is good again.

 Now that is just rude!

Oh well, went for a long tiki tour, wound up in the fergusson passage, bagged a good bluefin trev on the r2c doggie, then got it nailer by a 6ft shark, but managed to retrieve the lure luckily, and then after bagging a few nice skipjack, we tootled out to 350m deep, bottom bouncing and filled the ice box in 40mins (with just one rod, as the 2nd rod lost the tip ceramic somehow), every drop (only 6) got double headers, a couple triples, not bad for 3 hook ledger rigs really. Assorted Perch, a small grouper or bar cod,(looks like a bass) goldline jobfish, rusty jobfish and longtail/flame snappers (ettilis coruscans).

rusty jobfish.

Oh, one of the mantis shrimps off the whar, mentioned above a few days ago.

But...... very long day in a small boat, 9 hours all told in the sun, man, I am cooked!

Still, should be  easier tomorrow, Dave Cook and I are heading to the Pundakona River to have a play tomorrow with mangrove jacks and spot-tail bass with any luck!

when we got back, Jenno set about catching more mantis shrimps, got some good video of it, so Steve you can see exactly how it is done! :-)

a few vid links.

 

How long are you there for, seems like it has been ages to we

mere mortals.

Did the bottom fishing thing today, me and Lisa (joes wife), filled a 120l IceKube ice box with fish. hmmmm. spacies count, ummm.... goldline jobfish, oblique banded snapper, goldflag jobfish, longnose emperors, longtail snapper, a nice little Ummm groper (looked like a brown trout colour and spots), ruby snapper, batubatu fusilier, yellowfin seaperch,.... ummmm I think that is about it. BIG goldies though, about 4-5kg or so, very nice fish. Imagine a snapper crossed with a kahawai body shape.

Still, coming out of 250-300m, meant a LOT of winding! :-) Je suis tres fatique! All caught on the bait from 2 skippies.







...a good day all in all....

Then, to cap it off, after cleaning all the fish etc, came back to the bar for dinner and went out and got a couple of makkas off the jetty for the stoopid cat, Mumu.

I'll do pics whn I get back in a week or so, honest!

Lazy day today tho, as a pile of visitors came that required use of all boats etc.... and of course I am not too opposed to having a lazy (well, to be honest, an extra-overly-lazy ) day after the last few days of long hours casting, fishing and generally enjoying myself! :-)

Have resolved to do another mangrove Jack/ munda bar trip tomorrow though, that will ease me back into things nicely I suspect :-)

 

Trolling sets are all loaded with braid here, so if you are happier with nylon trolling gear, bring along a 15kg set with you I'd say. Perhaps if there is a group of you and are looking at rationalising your gear, some guys could bring that, others the casting stuff.

 

I have been truly impressed with stickbaits here this time around, especially the R2C doggies, they have been the show stealers for me this trip.

 

Otherwise, Joe has a pretty extensive tackle shop here that can help you with most of your needs... especially Halco trolling lures which are extremely good for the mangroves and for trolling reefs etc, you won't beat his prices in NZ.

 

Yesterday we spent the day (well, 10-30 to 3-00) working Pukpuku for Jacks again, and had a ball. Ended up with 7 mangrove jacks landed (released all but two), kept 2 decent little trevs and of course got nailed by a couple of big sekiseki, which as you will know would be one of the most aggresive fish you will ever find.

I was awesome up there, surrounded by mangroves, real jurassic park sort of stuff. Gladly we didn't see and of the Longnosed longtoothed marine iguanas that tend to give me the willies a little :-)

I lost several lures to the jacks, and one big trev that just went nuts and damn near climbed a tree to get away, but the jacks will wait til a lure is just over their snag, and grab and dive under the snag with it. Doesn't matter how heavy your line is, you just can't prevent that.

Swearing ensues.

today, another lazy day (hey after 2 weeks I admit, I am starting to flag! :-) ) and we headed out to check out the mangrove rivers around pinandpanda on kohinngo island, and yes, more jacks, only ket the one this time though....so I am conserving the stocks for you GPR!

Depending on weather, I am thinking of heading over to Haepei again, but whatever, I want to get more stickbait action on tape, so will work the munda bar/shark point/lighthouse area either way.

Well, catch ya tomorrow!

Couple of blokes went to the fad today, got several mahimahi, one 13kg female, very nice fish for here, and then had a couple of marlin come in and start mugging a school of rainbow runners around the fad. I was over at haepei, working a R2C Rover lure.... had been putting it off as it just didn't ring my bells, using it at home for kings it was just OK, but then it was never in really calm water..... here, in dead flat water, the lure is way, WAY better.... in 2 hours landed 2 GTs,




 a bluefin, and a red bass, lost (thankfully) a big mutha of a shark that nailed it but thankfully missed the hook.... no idea how though, and hits from other fish, red bass, trevs and a big cuda even. So my nice pristine brand new lure now has bites and scratches all over it! :-)

And now.... Joe has put my little electric motor on the back of my little MacBoat 360, so I think I might just go for a little wander round over the flats, see what I can scare up! :-)

Sorry BA, no snapper mate.... although... hang on, yes, another name for the red bass is Malobar Snapper! So there, I DID talk about catching snapper a little at least! :-)

It is neat just puddling around on the lagoon around the resort. Talk about relaxing anda great way to wind down after a hectic day "proper" fishing. Well, when I say "hectic", I really mean, "not very hectic at all really".

Certainly sucessful. god, I love fishing in the tropics!

Oh...... bugger. Man, I was stuffed, downed a bottle of water straight after we cut it loose, poured another over me head. Whew!

The bloody thing had eaten whatever had taken the lure, in the process had swallowed the lure right down, so no chance of rescuing that either, double bugger!

Well, with that the breeze started to lift, so we headed back in to the resort, home by 11a.m.

Once there, a steady 10-15kn northerlie came up, which blows right into the resort, and by golly, it was nice, so very very nice. The deck at the bar has nice wide new bench seats under the Matemateigana... basically stunstunfish tree...they mash the leaves to stun fish in the water.... but I do know it casts a beaut dappled shade, with the cool breeze keeping things even more civilised.... man, it is my newest favourite spot! :-)

 Great spot for a nana nap anyhow, right over the beach with wavelets lapping against the woodwork..... damn, but I love the tropics!

Last couple of days have been hectic, did another day bottom fishing, a ton of nice fish, full eskies and more, all needed for a big party this weekend (Dave Cooks b'day), totally stuffed/cooked by the end of that day, then yesterday out fishing for the day with Joe, had a ball, more nice fish on the stickbaits etc, and today popped in to Bobae village and picked up a thankyou letter and carving for the lions club as thanks for hte donated goods, then out to the blackett straits again, more Mara, ringo kulele and coral trout on the small poppers and more underwater shots of the lures, fish etc, hopefully it'll all come out good....


bagged a nice little square-tail or passionfruit coral trout, as well as released anotehr (taska was not too impressed with that idea! :-) )

Now, if there is a gap in this damn ash cloud, I will get home to some nice cool temps!

 

This trip has been phenominal for the weather, we have honestly not had a single whole day of bad, wet weather all trip....25days!.... it has been awesome. I feel totally cooked however, so guys, the thought of a nice cool place is actually pretty damn nice! :-)

As soon as I get home I will go thru and fully picture this thread up, as best as I am able anyhow.

And yes Kezza, I do indeed love this place, the tropics are totally cool.... or not as the case may be!

And no Martini, the fish don't like jandals..... they like thongs I think ( too many damn aussies over there! :-) ) Youse jus' jealous! U wan fella jelus tumas!! nyah nyah! Call ya when I get back.

Stu.

Although Im actually heading to Fiji, im taking up a lighter spinning set. 

What size rod did you use for the 20lb braid?

Im heading up with stradic 4000 on a MWS 6-8 spin, and a whole lot of smaller poppers, but im not sure how heavy to go on the braid??

Cheers

Tim