Finally, Ive got the chance to write up a trip report for the two trips I went on In late April and early may! Between Uni, work (saving for more GT trips
) bream fishing and trout fishing I haven't had time to write up a good report! This is my first report So go easy fellas
After seeing family friends go over to Ono Island in 2010 me and the old man decided it was time for us to get amongst a few of these GT's on poppers and stickbaits! We had to bring mum and my little sister with us, so we decided that our port of call was Fiji on the Coral Coast. We booked our trip through Ocean Blue and we couldn't have been happier with the way they helped us design our trip.
Day 1: We flew from, melbourne to Nadi and caught a bus down to the Mango Bay resort on Fiji's Coral coast, we were greeted by all the staff at the resort which was a beautiful reception. I'd be lucky enough to go to Fiji before, but my parents were blown away by Fijian Hospitality. It truly is amazing. After a snorkel, and a beautiful feed it was time to get the gear ready for our first day out on the boat. Unfortunately, our rods didn't arrive with flight so we had to wait a day until we had our gear. So we decided the Local wahoo populations would be our first challenge.
Day 2: Set out from Mango bay towards some of the islands located off the coast, we trolled for Wahoo and managed 8-10 for the day, with a few solid fish amongst them. I managed one on a jig which I was pretty happy about. While only being a smaller fish I was still happy to get my first on a jig. When we got back to the resort they cooked us up a beautiful feed of chargrilled wahoo which was amazing. We were greeted with our rod tubes which had been dropped off my air pacific!
Day 3: Because it was a sunday, we decided to go with the Fijian tradition and have a rest day. The weather was too flash, so hours were spent by the pool while the rest of the family went on a Jet boat ride up the sigatoka river! They said it was an excellent experience!
Day 4: In the morning we decided to hit up a few coral drop offs in search for a dogtooth Tuna. I had one solid hit, and hook up but I was done and dusted within in seconds. Managed a couple of small Barracuda but that was about it. With the tides and swell rising, we decided to see if we could find a GT on the back of some of the bommies. On the way to the bommies we stopped to fuel up and have somethin to eat, next thing you know we see a few birds working out in the distance, so we we drove over to investigate! To our amazement, there were hundreds of 40-80kg yellowfin busting up all around the boat. It was all systems GO!!! We threw our poppers out and worked them back at hih speed, my offerin was engulfed by a fish we estimated to be around 80kg. With the road loaded up and the Stella locked, the fish ripped about 80m of braid of the pool before It pulled the hooks. Dad was on aswell and the same thing happened, much to our dismay! GUTTED!...Back to the GT'S... Casting all afternoon we had 20-30 solid fish come out of the water towards our stickbaits and poppers but we only had one strike, which resulted in a estroyed FCL squidpen. Me and the old man still hadn't managed to get our first GT's in 2 days of fishing! The deckies Johnny and Micky ensured our enthusiasm stayed high!
Day 5: The boys decided that we needed to get a few fish on the scoreboard so we decided to go chase some bluefin trevally inside the lagoons. Using P.E 5 gear and smaller sized poppers we managed 9 Bluefin trevally! It was nice to get a few on the board and it got us excited to chase something bigger in the afternoon. With a bit more solid swell and the correct tides we scooted out to the islands to find some GT's on the fringing reefs. We were greeted with some solid fish that were wuite aggressive towards our lures. Using our P.E 8 gear we weren't quite getting the casts close enough to the reef to get strikes, so we decided to downgrade to our P.E 5 gear to get out lures in there a bit further. We had 15-20 strikes for the afternoon, and I managed to get my first 15kg model on 50lb gear, on a nomad ulua stickbait. Dad got blown away by 2 solid fish, and he also managed a few red bass and bluefin trevally. My last cast resulted in something quite amazin, while twitchin my Nomad Ulua, I noticed a solid figure dwarfing the lure but i couldn't quite fiure out what it was. To my amazement, a 80-90k marlin came out of the water swatting my offering with his bill. I changed up the way I was retriving the lure but couldn't induce a strike. To see the fish was simply magical I was so pumped!
Day 6: Our final rest day we decided to go up the upper navua gorge to do some whitewater rafting! If anyone ever goes to Fiji I could not recommend this day higher! We Rafted a 35km stretch of the river and it was simply amazing, The whitewater sections weren't too full on so its something you could take you family too. My younger sister and Mum had an amazing time! The Scenery up there is simply stunning!
Day 7: Decided to dedicate this one to castin for GT's all day and we were rewarded. We managed 9 fish for the day with the biggest being around 23-24kg mark. All of the fish except one were pulled out from the reef on 50lb Gear, which i thought was quite an effort! They defeinately put up a solid fight on that gear! The final spot we went to on the way home was just off the mian island, where we encounted some very solid 30kg+ models. We had 3 solid hits and we got monstered by all 3 fish. Bit disappointing but as I found out! Thats GT fishing. It was honestly an amazing first trip and the boys from the boat made the trip 10 times better just because of their jokes and kind nature. On the last day they invited us back to their village to have A lovo. We ate the Lovo and talked to the village elders for a good 4 hours. Had a nice Kava ceremony and headed back to the resort. A day that will stay with me for a very long time! Here are the results
Rods Used: Illex Ashura 240H and Illex Ashura 270M
Reels: Shimano Stella 20000SW, Daiwa Saltist 4500H
Braid: 80lb TufLine and 50lb TD sensor
Lures: 120g Squid Pencil, Nomad Ulua's, Nomad Cubera, Smith Baby Runboh's, Nomad Bopara, Halco Roosters
