Fiji fishing with Bob

“Bob”, a chief’s son, met us on the dock with a “Bula” and told me and Aussie Ian [whom I’d just met] to follow him. SWMBO had decided that since I’d been good and had not gone fishing on our annual trips for about 10 years that I should take the chance to chase spanish mackerel, giant trevally and coral trout while I could. As Ian and I were introduced to our other angler [can’t remember her name but Ethyl seems appropriate], another Aussie, I cast my eyes around at the gear on the boat which is always a tell-tale of the quality of the overall operation.

Bob

Shimano Tiagra reels in various states were [poorly] loaded with braids and one 50w was spooled with what looked like 100lb long line backbone. A couple of the rods were missing guides… The glimmering hope lay in the popper outfit; a Daiwa Dogfight 6500 on a Shimano Caranx Kaibutsu rod. The leader was joined by a PR knot and the ends were tidy and the knot tight… definitely the class equipment on the boat. The boat herself was a solid ali 8m craft and well enough appointed with twin yammie 200’s on the back. But the fittings told of a lack of care, pins were missing from rod holders, rod holders were half held by popped rivets – small stuff that’s easy to fix. The ‘bottom bashing’ gear was akin to children’s fishing gear, low quality reels on telescopic rods…. But I told myself that the cost was minimal so to just kick back and make friends with the deckie, which is invariably the best way to get the best tips and gear. Moe the deckie had fished professionally for a dozen years and seemed keen and knowledgeable. Bob gave us the safety rundown, kicked us off and soon we were cruising out of Port Denerau where he put the hammers down.

Within 15 minutes the water had changed to a light clear blue reflecting from the sand below and we put in bibbed lures. Bob explained that we may expect multiple strikes if we hit a school of mackerel and what to do if that occurred. Then we sat back and trolled. While we motored along I sat next to Bob in the cabin… he was well over driving around the ocean and told me so. I pointed out that with paying clients aboard he should try and be enthusiastic, not that I was all that worried but the other guys had reasonable expectations. Finally as we drew over a reef one of the rods went off; well sort of as a fish was dragged across the surface on a heavy drag. Ethyl grabbed the rod and wound the fish in (literally - there was no playing the poor thing), a nice coral trout that would have gone a couple kilos which was photographed and unceremoniously dumped on ice [later I opened the bin and iki’d it].

Ethyl scores...

That was encouraging but would prove to be the only lure strike. As we moved towards a group of bommies [reefs]. Bob broke out the popper rod, walked to the bow and said to Ian and I “2 casts each, I call you, you come up!” “Great” I thought, “I’m into that” but what Bob meant was that he’d cast 4 times and if he hooked up he’d call Ian or I to take the rod.

Screw that, I told him I’d cast my own bloody popper and that I knew his kit would be roughly $2k to replace if I dropped it overboard. So he handed over the rod and I hit the mark first cast, ‘blooped’ the popper and got ready for… well nothing actually, despite covering all the fishy water I didn’t raise anything except a decent sweat. Next stop was for some ‘bottom bashing’ next to a large isolated reef. We baited up ledger rigs with bits of pilchard. My terminal rig was terrible so I tied a new one under the dis-approving gaze of Bob. Fact is that I thoroughly enjoyed the session, managing to catch several new species including coral trout and Fijian bream and a sort of cod. The fish were pretty small so not too much drama on the low quality gear we used. In fact, several pulled string.

Trout

The fish went on ice for the village to consume and we all caught a few. We fished for an hour or so to the top of the tide when the bite died, then upped gear and trolled back towards base.

When we hit the murky water the gear came in and Bob hit the afterburners back to port to gran his afternoon crew. We jumped off at the dock and I hit the nearest bar for an ice cold beer - the best way to cap off such a trip. Overall it would be churlish to be overly critical of Bob and his boat, because it really was a highlight to snag a few species that I’d previously not – all I know is that if I had Bob’s boat I’d run a different style of operation