Kadavu Island - Fiji Islands

[Adrian Watt]

Just had our first look of the summer season with poppers along Kadavu Island's Great Astrolable Barrier Reef. Not really summer yet and the conditions were not ideal but plenty of bites from fish around the 15-20kg range. Our angler Tony was new to popper casting but had geared himself up well with a HOTS and Saltiga Dogfight and did very well in a fair breeze. He released a couple of nice GTs pushing 40kg and deckie Joe released his new PB with a 30kg fish. Not bad for a season opener little look.
Interestingly, Tony's Dogfight crapped out on us. The reel started front loading line and when we had a closer look, we found metal scoring all around the outside of the spool and a hairline crack on one of the bail support struts. Never seen that before !

[Sam Conacher]

awesome,  i wish that was my lifestyle.

[Scott Maybury]

Getting me fired up for January Adrian! The boys are pumped too

Tony doesn't look like a small fella, couple if nice fish there, bring it on!

[Peter Morris]

Arrgghh I am back over there in March....I now wish it was tomorrow.

Some nice fish there.

Pete

[Colin P]

Nice looking GT - roll on end January!

[Greg Burt]

Arrgghh I am back over there in March....I now wish it was tomorrow.

Some nice fish there.

Pete

Hang in there Pete

[Sam Cheadle]

Hey Adrian,

Looking forward to our trip to Matava. Were booked in from the 17th dec. I am hopefully gonna loose my GT virginity. I have been purchasing a few poppers much to the annoyance of my wife. I wanted to ask how many poppers, knife jigs etc do you think would be enough to bring? and what size knife jigs bring best results?

[Adrian Watt]

Hi Sam,
At worst you might lose 3 or 4 poppers in a day but that would be very unusual. Expect to lose maybe one popper a day. I have had guests fish the same popper for 4-5 days and take it home as a (pretty smashed up) trophy....
Jigs - We use 180-220g jigs for general dropping 60-120m on the outer slopes. If you want to try some deeper stuff then look at jigs 300-400g fast sinking. Jigs with silver & lumo pink or lumo yellow work well. Some of the new design octopus / squid type jigs also seem to work quite well here. We carry a few extra poppers and jigs so don't worry about bringing too much.
Looks like you will be the first anglers to fish on the new inshore popper boat !

[Sam Cheadle]

Thanks for the Advice Adrian,

I've seen the boat on the Bite Me website and it  looks great Adrian, really hope its available whilst were there.
Cheers Sam

[Graham Stevenson]

Off to Ono Island (just up the road from Matava) on Wednesday. Looking forward to it - hopefully not too windy.Well stocked up on poppers and jigs.

[Shane Hartstone]

Nice work Adrian, You're making me home sick! Haha.  I bet Joe was happy.

[Adrian Watt]

Hi Graham,
Piero is a great guy, Oneta is a lovely place. I am sure you will have a fantastic time. Weather forecast isn't looking too bad and the GTs are biting
Good luck !

[Nathan Cefai]

Hi Adrian,

that chap there tony in the first few pics,i sorted him out with all his gear,spoke to him every week befor the trip getting him siked and showing him riggs an and lures that are most used when chasing GTs,did he manage to get any dog tooth tunas ??

Good work to him on those big GTs!!

[Adrian Watt]

Hi Nathan,
Great job on the gear - Those HOTS popper and jig rods he used were absolutely beautiful.
Unfortunately the weather was a little 'iffy' for doggie jigging. We tried a little, thought we had a doggie on for 15 minutes but it turned out to be a GT....jigged up from 90m !!!
Hooked up a probable amberjack but got sharked right behind the boat...had the shark on for all of 20 seconds till it went berserk and bit through the leader

[Sam Conacher]

Adrian,

a question for you if it is ok,

with-out being rude in the jigging photo (above),  that look's to me like it is a Dogfight that he has got on his jigging rod, am i correct?




i have honestly allway's THOUGHT and all i am saying is that i know both low gear and high gear ratio reel's can be used for jigging and that i honestly thought this from the start to.  Some angler's recommend only low gear ratio for jigging.


did he land that fish he is hooked up to in the photo?


did it take him long at all to get it in if he did land it in the boat?


did it look like (at all) that he was having any trouble gaining/retrieveing line?