Topwater Caranx Ignobilis: Giant Trevally (GT) > Reports & Expeditions

lord howe island

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alex frangoulis:
hi guys,

going to lord howe for a week first week of may. pretty keen to pop for kings off the rocks.

As i've never been, does anyone have any experience fishing the place that they could share.

also looking for a good charter opperator to chase kings/pelagics etc.

any info on the fishing or the island would be much appreciated.

cheers Alex

Brandon Khoo:
Duncan is the man to talk to on shore based fishing there

Malcolm Crane:
Hi Alex,

Fishing at Lord Howe can be quite exceptional, but there are a few things to be aware of.
There are pretty tight weight restrictions on the Dash 8 getting over there. 14 kgs and they enforce it, so forget the idea of taking a few dozen 500gm jigs with you! You do need to be fairly discriminating with what you take. If it is an issue you may be looking at some of your baggage arriving a day or so after you, which is not the end of the world anyway.

Also, fishing on LHI can be (is!) very weather dependant and the wind dictates. This can have a big impact on whether the boats can get out or not. When land based fishing though, there will always be a protected area where you can get a line in the water. Some areas are now marine sanctuaries, but there are still plenty of spots to go, although you may have to walk a ways.

Now, having got the the warnings out of the way, what to do? If you are wanting to get out beyond the lagoon and chase the fabled LHI kings there are a number of operators who can help you.The two that I have used extensively are Jack Shick (Noctiluca)and Dave Gardener (Greenback). These guys are serious about their fishing and it is their primary business. As a result they are way more likely to want to go fishing than a few of the other operators who, how do I put it? - operate a bit more on island time and have other things to do?
They, and most of the other operators, are more focused on jigging, live baiting, trolling and bait fishing than popper fishing, but that doesn't preclude you from popper fishing. I have found that better results came from using sinking stickbaits, as poppers tended to get mobbed by the smaller rat kings that seemed to be more active around the surface. The deeper I fished the bigger the kings. I'm more of a popper fisherman than anything else, but Lord Howe really lends it self to jigging.
Another thing to be aware of is that there is not a lot of catch-and-release at Lord Howe. The boat will keep all legal sized fish and they are used to supply the island with food.

I've done a fair bit of land based fishing off the rocks at LHI and probably lost more tackle there than anywhere else! There are brutal ledges that undercut the shore and it can be a challenge to keep fish out of those areas.

The person who can no doubt give you a lot of good advice on fishing the rocks at LHI would be our forum sponsor, Duncan, who has spent quite some time on the island and can really speak from experience.

It's a fantastic place to spend some time, the waters are stunning and the fishing can be outrageous. You just need the wind gods to be on your side.

alex frangoulis:
 thanks for the info Malcom.
 
Is there a restriction on rod tubes regarding to length etc?  If only able to take a few jigs what other tackle would be preferable or in your opinion a necessity. eg. oversize soft stickbaits were an idea i had to keep weight down.

cheers Alex

Malcolm Crane:
Alex,

Rod tubes have never been an issue on the Lord Howe run, just weight. There seem to be surfboards & rod tubes on just about every flight over there. Stick within the usual lengths though, I think it's 2 meters, but not 100% sure. To give you an idea what it's like at the airport when you check in at LHI they not only weigh your check-in baggage, they also weigh you and your carry-on on a set of scales.

After years of taking too many of the wrong things (same for most of my fishing trips usually) , I now stick to two outfits only. One is a fairly serious jigging outfit capable of handling PE8, the other is a PE4 spin outfit using a Z4500 Saltiga and a Saltiga Hiramasa 63S. I've found those two outfits will handle anything I want to do there.

Half a dozen jigs, ranging in the 250gm to 350gm range seem to work well for me and then a selection of smaller poppers ( around 60 to 80gms ), smaller stickbaits in the 10 to 15cm sizing, some metal slices and that's about all I bother with these days. Seems to cover most things.

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