This report is as sent to me by Lee Rayner, note the guys spent most their time trolling.
August 2010'
After finally getting back to reality - By this I mean Melbourne in August, which also means 12 degrees and sideways rain, it already feels like a long time since I was experiencing some of the best fishing I have ever seen in one of the most remote locations possible.
After having now fished various parts of Fiji on four seperate occasions, three of these have been on board the Immaculate 51 Bertram Golden Eagle and each trip has been better than the last, with the absolute pinnacle being my most recent journey.
This trip saw myself and four mates venture into the untouched waters of the Southern Lau Group of islands - located 170 miles South east of Suva.
As with all good holidays there was plenty of eye opening experiences along the way that help to make any trip memorable, beginning with the small plane that flew us into the island of Moala to not only save a lot of travel time by water but also to get us straight into the fishing.
Once aboard Golden Eagle it was only a matter of minutes before lures were put in the water for a short troll before it was lines in and off to the island of Toyota, our first nights anchorage and also refueling of the boat.
Next morning we headed further into the Lau Group and into the thick of the fishing with a short popper session along one of the islands seeing all the boys getting stretched by GT's to roughly 25 kg in weight. A trolling session later in the day also produced a bunch of fat Wahoo up to 25 kg, Spanish mackerel and a few rat Yellowfin that later became sashimi.
Next day was D Day with Tom pointing the bow of Golden Eagle towards a bunch of low lying coral atolls and more importantly a seamount that last time the boys fished it produced plenty of big doggies being hooked and landed.
Upon arriving at the atolls a bunch of 30 plus Xraps and some skirts were deployed and within the first kilometer one of the reels was screaming as the line angled down on a dogtooth. Glen the angler put the heat on the fish before a 30 kg dog was slid through the door. Within the next kilometer we landed a pair of Wahoo and another dogtooth before we reached the seamount and troll gear was swapped for jig tackle.
First drops of the jigs were clobbered with two fish doing their best to spool and bust off the boys. The pair of fish that were landed were a solid 35 and 55 kg in weight, needless to say all were over the moon with the first drop. The ensuing hours produced plenty more dogtooth action on fish that ranged from 5 kg to completely unstoppable with sme of the wipeouts being unbelievable.
For the rest of the trip the fishing continued to be mind blowing with no two areas being fished twice, as we were keen to do a lot of exploratory work finding likely locations and different fishing options, with this in mind we didn't do a lot of one style fishing, in fact we just did lots of different things from trolling to jigging and popping each day,
Trolling many of the points that the current roared around produced some incredible action on big Wahoo, with many in the 20-35kg bracket, Yellowfin ranging 20-35kg and a heap more dogtooth in the 20-30kg bracket, interestingly the dogtooth definitely had a distinct liking for the xrap 30 in the SB colour.
As for the popper fishing the islands have what seems like an endless supply of solid fish on offer with the fishing around the tide changes producing hot fishing with the poppers being smashed every few minutes, as for the size of the GT's there were a lot of 15-25kg models with plenty of bigger ones hooked, lost and landed, in fact each session produced at least one or two fish in the 30-45 kg bracket, with most of our sessions only being for about 2 hrs at a time, so I can onlyimagine what it would be like if you popped all day long.
One of the huge bonuses to this trip was also the fact that with so many islands you could always get out of the weather if neeed be, and the calm water on the lee side of the islands is where the Sailfish hold up.
Just for fun we also had some unbelievable action trolling teasers and stickbaits for Yellowfin and Wahoo, the memories of Wahoo 10 ft in the air behind the boat is hard to forget.
Each night it was great to be able to pull into one of the most amazing locations I have ever seen. A huge lagoon that was dotted with small beaches and these crazy mushroom rocks that you have to see to believe, a visit each night from the locals was part of the adventure and they were more than happy with a load of fresh fish we gave them.
At the end of the trip everyone was exhausted and unlike most fishing trips I have been on where there is one or two fish that make the trip the Southern Lau Group had about 20 with 5 Wahoo over 40 kg, including one absolute horse that dragged the scales to 60 kg. Heaps of GT's with a half dozen over 35 kg, including 2 at an estimated 45 kg. Dogtooth that averaged 20 - 30 with two over 50 kg. A bunch of solid Yellowfin up to 35 kg in weight, including busting a rod on one that we ended up losing which we estimate at over 50 kg.
There was so many other great things that happened on the trip its hard to put it in writing in just a few words, so the best thing option I have come up with is to book in again for the same time next year - which is just wht I have done.
