Big Dogtooth Tuna Records Fall

Just heard from pro fishing guide George Trinkler aboard Suva based charterboat Golden Eagle that they have smashed a couple of Fiji Islands ladies dogtooth tuna records. I asked him for the low down. He writes :
"During day 2 of our trip the boys caught some nice fish jigging and
livebaiting so the girls decided it was ther turn in the morning. We were
drifting over the Kadavu seamount with the girls both harnessed up with the reels
set on strike drag and a drop back to the baits via the rigger when Kim
Gilbert hooked up on 24kg line, shane also hooked up on a jig at the same
time but was cut of when his fish bolted for the bottom. We left Sheridan
Purvis bait out and as we got colour on Kims fish Sheridan hooked up on
37kg. Fight time was around 20 minutes each and Kim Gilbert's fish was 42kg
on 24kg and Sheridans 64kg on 37kg, Sheridan fought another dogtooth for 40
minutes on 15kg only to have the hook fall out and both girls were stoked at
catching bigger dogtooth than there partners."


Awsome doggies mate, that's a fun day on the seamount !

To top that off, Golden Eagle also won the recent Denarau Sport & Gamefishing Club Tournament.

Very well done to the angling team and crew.

GT Popping 2010 Season Summary

"Mine's bigger than yours "

Its been a tough season weather-wise, the worst I can recall in 8 years of gamefishing around Kadavu Island waters. January was great but the next 4 months were a mixture of cyclones, big swells and out of season tradewinds. Not what you need when you are trying to park a 7 ton gamefishing boat 30 yards from the outer barrier reef breakers... Even so, we managed a lot of nice GTs nudging 100lbs and a fair few doggies aboard Bite Me and Tease Me, the best of which were around 65kg.

Here are the Top Ten GTs on poppers this season (at least the ones I got a half decent photo of)
Not in any particular order....
Congrats guys, you popped hard and saw the best fish.

Tri (Australia)

Tim (Australia)

Scott (Australia)

Margaret (England)

Jin (Brazil)

Dave (Australia)

Dave (Australia)

Dan (Oz / South Africa)

Christian (France)

Bruno (France)

Brendan (Australia)

As for the hot poppers this season, the popper that accounted for the most fish was the Cubera. 150 or 180, they are relatively easy to work, pop well in all conditions and proved themselves over and over again.
Also fishing well were the usual top suspects - the FCL Labo EBIPOP, the Craftbait Megamouth, the Hammer Heads, the Halco Haymakers and the River 2 Sea Dumbell 200 poppers.
Full Scale was a newcomer this year with some Australian anglers and proved very tough and effective.
Buffalo lures were on test on Bite Me. Some early models had paintwork issues and have been changed but all proved themselves tough enough for the GTs here and have caught many fish. Not had one single failure.

Cubera 150 The all round winner

The Craftbait Megamouth in this clown triggerfish colour was deadly

Buffalo Lures on test - Very effective and good value for money

FCL Labo EBI POP

Newcomer Full Scale was very effective

River 2 Sea Dumbell Cheap but very effective

Funkey Hammerhead

FCL Panic Trout, pretty damn good actually....

Whackiest Newcomer ?

This Patriot Fizzer

Best Stickbait ?

The Orion Bigfoot

Most unusual catch ?
A Diamond Trevally (Alectis indicus) caught on a Buffalo popper

Ashley (USA)

Last Popping Week of the Season

Some pics of the last popping & jigging week of the Fiji summer season. These guys came all the way from Italy organised by an Italian specialist fishing agency - Fishmania Travel
Vincenzo Caccico from Fishmania takes specialist anglers to some of the best remote popping and jigging spots around the world. You can see his blog here.
One of the anglers, Antonello, came last year but this time nailed his personal Best GT over 40kg.
We jigged the seamount but the big doggies were absent so the guys had some fun popping for wahoo that schooled all around Bite Me.

A small GT in black spawning colouration

Blackfin Barracuda with an apetite bigger than its mouth

Vincenzo contemplates a big Great Barracuda and how much damage it's done to his Craftbait popper !

Popping for wahoo on the seamount

One of several wahoo taken on poppers

Some nice Grouper on the jigs

A very unusual catch - a Coronet Fish

Rosy Jobfish

Anto knocks off another mid-sized GT

GT Popping in Fiji

GT Popping in Fiji
Originally uploaded by Matava - Fiji's Premier Eco Adventure Resort

Nice fish from BIll!

Hats the way to Popper in Style

There have been a great many technological advances in popper casting and jigging fishing gear in the past few years. Nowadays a popping and jigging expedition with a few mates to some far flung tropical destination requires more than a few Stellas on Hots Gipangs and a bag full of expensive lures that would qualify for a wall space in a museum of modern art.
The sun. Nice though it is to bask in its warming rays, the damn things can kill you. Pretty much everybody knows now about the sun's harmfull UVB radiation that at best will cook you to wrinkled bronze colour and at worst, can cause malignant melanoma that if not caught quickly will absolutely terminate your fishing activities and probably you.
Fortunately a range of products are now available to keep anglers popping like Englishmen in the mid-day sun.
Here are some examples seen recently aboard Bite Me :

The good old original Baseball cap and PFG / Colombia spf shirt

The Panama Look

Masau displays the traditional Fijian T-Shirt on the head trick

The just cover everything and try not to die from heat exhaustion option

The wouldn't be seen dead in that (good job it covers my face) accessory

and last but not least, the I don't give a stuff, I'm on holiday look

I just had a solar keratosis burnt off my nose by a doc wielding a 20,000v zapper thingy. (that's a technical term by the way). The sun needs to be taken seriously.
If you can see the sky.......you are getting a dose of UV radiation.