I spent a very pleasant week at a location in Fiji called Volivoli last week with Malcolm Crane and Kasey Leong. The location was recommended by one of our members here, Neville Haglund some six months ago and after discussing it with Neville, felt it was worth trying out.
While less known to anglers, it certainly is very well known in the diving fraternity.
For the week, we were based out of the Volivoli Beach Resort, a resort sitting at the northernmost tip of the main Fijian Island, Viti Levu. The resort occupies a stunning location on the side of a hill down to the water. It's a small but gorgeous resort with high quality accommodation, great food and wonderful staff. It certainly is not what we are used to on fishing trips!
The fishing at the resort is done out of a very spacious 30 foot+ centre console, Half Cast. Our host for the week, Nick Darling operated the boat every day we went out. The boat is big, spacious, stable and very well set up for GT casting.
Nick really did take us far and wide during our stay. We headed out to some very remote reefs, some of which were a couple of hours away. To be perfectly frank, I did not pick an ideal tide. A combination of work commitments and availability saw us undertake the trip over a less than ideal moon phase and there was little current through the week we fished. Just about any time we found any semblance of current or even movement caused by the swell, we would find GTs.
We caught enough GTs in significantly less than ideal conditions to give us a taste of what it would be like if the current was pumping and through the week we were there, we fished some of the best looking territory I have seen for GTs. I have no doubt that with some decent current on some of the structure we saw that the GTs would be really switched on and I have every intention of revisiting except next time, I will ensure it is when there is going to be a decent current flow. I think the area has enormous potential and I have no doubt that some lucky anglers are going to hit it at the right time and have 30 plus GT days out there. We also got a taste of the light fishing there and I got hammered by the reefies and bluefin trevally. Quite a number of my favourite small stickbaits were souvenired by the fish.
We felt terribly spoilt through our stay at Volivoli. While I do love liveaboards for what they offer in terms of remoteness, I will not deny that being able to return to solid ground each day, unlimited hot shower, luxurious accommodation, first class meals, a masseur if you want one ......... Well, you know what I mean!
What Volivoli does offer is something which many members write to me about and that is a resort location which one can take a family to for a great holiday while yet getting out for some potentially fantastic GT fishing. I have been a lot of places and in nearly all cases, any resort which offers potentially great fishing is going to be one which the wife is going to think that you prioritised fishing over the family. Not so at Volivoli as this is one location where I do think the family could have a great holiday at the same time as you are out chasing GTs! You can have your cake and eat it too
Nick was an absolutely wonderful host and we are already planning our next trip there.
