Fishing in Fiji

[Tim a]

Hey all,

Haven't been posting alot lately but I need some advice.

I'm heading to Fiji in June/July, I know a basic over view of how it fishes, I've been there before but that was for sport hence no fishing time.

Going as a family trip, but, we are sailing on a 58" ketch with 12" tendor. On board the ketch is some of the game fishing gear, however, I have a feeling its fairly dodgy. I'm bringing a TLD 25 with a 24kg back bone rod that is never used in our house, but I want to bring another set up to help the spread of trolling lures. I'm wondering whether anyone has any ideas for a cheaper combo(allthough from what I've seen apparently TLD's are the best cheap reel) or is it best to save up for another TLD and Backbone. I will use them again at some stage. The species that will be targeted are Tuna and Wahoo but the captain says that he frequently encounters Marlin. I don't trust my extremely limited gamefish experience to land a Marlin tho.

Also, when we are anchored up I'm gonna be taking out the Tendor to some reefs and using some large plastics, poppers and hard bodies for the local reefies with a chance of a big GT(hopefully not one of those car doors in modern fishing all the time tho!). For this I plan on using my 4000 symetre with 4-8kg Starlo Stix(Should really be rated higher I think) with 15 and 25lb braid.

Has anyone had any experience fishing like this up north or any of the other Pacific Islands? I really have no clue so pretty much anything will help.

Its a big step from my fishing so far consisting of lots of breaming, bassing and sharking with limited squiring.

Thanks in advance,

Tim

[Rocket75]

I had a lot of customers come in stocking up for fiji trips in my amart days.

Lures of choice where the halco and rmg 100mm - 150mm, 1m - 3m. Really expensive over there apparently, so most guys tended to stock up big time as the lure losses can be huge (just like the fish)

Hard to imagine that you will get better value for money than the TLD range, you can pick up combos some times on a backbone for the same price as a TLD reel normally.

Can't wait to see the reports and pics (you lucky little bugger!)

Rocket

[Tim a]

Haha.

Thanks alot Rocket.

Good to see you using those Amart days to good use

Thanks again Rock.

[Bill74]

Hi Tim,

My wife and I have travelled and fished fairly extensively thru the Sth Pacific over the past few years. Generally we take at least 2x TLD 10-15kg combos and a couple of 2-5kg eggbeater outifts to flick lures and baits around the edges of the reefs.

Lures wise, we have found that most of the toothy critters around the Sth Pacific can't resist the sight of predominantly blue colours. My personal favorites is the Rapala CD18 blue and black striped - but make sure you take a few plus some wire attachments as they generally don't last too long as Rocket eluded to. Other very sucessful types of lures have included the good old Rio Prawnstar type lures, poppers (also preferably blue in colour) and slugs.

Have a great time

Bill

[MichaelJ]

we normly do really good with red head and white body main lure that gets the hits and fish for us

[Tim a]

Thanks Bill.

cheers Whatnow.

Surely someone else has fished fiji here!

[Dec]

My dad has a factory over there and has fished there a few times just with some locals chasing coaral trout. Once they trolled and the lure didnt swim properly and it was on the surface and it got smashed and bitten off. But they trolled for a while hooking up to big fish but they just couldnt get them in. Once when I was there we were at the local jetty and i was looking at some jacks when a huge GT came up and smashed a cigarette packet. I dont think it would mater very much with lure colours as they will just eat anything.

[benno573]

you may want to go a slightly more serious rig for the GT's, or else take a lot of lures!!! i have been bitch-slapped by some big boys on 80lb...

[Tim a]

benno573 wrote:

you may want to go a slightly more serious rig for the GT's, or else take a lot of lures!!! i have been bitch-slapped by some big boys on 80lb...

Haha yeap, I'm not really targeting the big GT's but I'm sure we'll hook up to some on the troll in the tendor using the TLD's so fingers crossed we'll land them.

Thanks guys.