I'm posting this on behalf of member Matthew Clem...
We flew into Kavieng on the 9th of November and after loading up the boat in Kavieng harbour, we motored out past Nusa Island and upon instruction some 5 minutes later we put the pushers out, and with barely enough time to sit down and crack a cold one as we headed to our destination, the 15kg outfit started giving line at a modest pace. After clearing the other lines and knocking the boat out of gear, one fairly excited sailfish exited the water and promptly returned the lure to it?s original owner, I?m still sure it had a smile on it?s face as it disappeared into the depths. Not a bad way to start the trip even though it resulted in a 1 nil result to the fish, but you couldn?t wipe the smile from this creek fishos face.
Anyway, down to the poppering aspect of the trip. Off the southern side of New Hanover, the first reef we pulled up at was in about 5-8 metres of gin clear water with a bit of current sweeping past the edge which dropped near vertically down to 200+ metres within a short cast of the reef, actually, all the reefs were exactly the same in this department so we didn?t have to travel far between reefs which maximized our fishing time no end.
Now I?m no expert when it comes to this style of fishing, as this was our first crack at poppering tropical reefs, but it came as a big surprise when first fish to nail my home made stickbait was a Spaniard of around 12 or so kilos which jumped about 2 metres clear of the water with my lure trailing from the corner of it?s mouth only to hit the water and come to an almost immediate stop, and with the drag setting I was using I?m sure it got whiplash. After this fish, we proceeded to pull the likes of green jobbies, mangrove jack (the likes I?d never seen in my time up sandfly infested creeks), coronation trout, sharks, which looked to be a type of whaler and the target species, G.T?s.
Another thing I found interesting was the number of noahs (around 5 ft long) caught on the poppers and stickbaits, of which they had the most spectacular strike out of all that we caught, usually ending in a mass of foam and whitewater as they thrashed about on the surface before they finally got enough body into the water to take off. Mind you, the G.T?s we caught, although mediocre compared to what I?ve seen on this awesome website still would?ve pulled them backwards any day of the week.
Actually one thing that sticks vividly in my mind is whilst during a retrieve on a spectacular day with no wind and a complete glass off, the sight of a G.T?s dorsal fin materialize behind my popper, closely followed by it?s tail fin as it came fully to the surface and getting myself in a complete fluff as it tailed my lure for about 2 or 3 metres before sucking it off the top ever so carefully and turning me inside out trying to stop it from rubbing me off on any number of nigger heads that were in the vicinity. This happened a few times during our trip and is something none of us will forget too soon, especially my father who was sitting in the flybridge with a birds eye view.
All I?ve got to say really is the trip, although brief, was a definite eye opener for all of us (my father, brother and me), the fishing was great with the target species caught and then some, lure losses were reasonable as we only dusted about 6 or 7, all of which went to the noahs mind you, all G.T?s hooked were landed and thanks to this website I had no tackle/knot failures at all which would probably change if the class of fish was better and the gear pushed harder. The one downside if my time there was we were a week to early to get any waves. Next time. A few photos attached for you. Any idea as to possible weights as we had no scales, but I can tell you I?m 6ft and 90 kilos (wearing the straw hat).
