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Fiji - Namotu Adventures

Dean Dibeler

When the cool weather sets in it can become harder to drag yourself out into the elements to go fishing. With frosty mornings, shorter days and fish becoming more lethargic, finding the motivation can be difficult. As that winter chill is already here it's a perfect time to leave the cold behind and go to somewhere warm, tropical and loaded with fish, and my first choice every time is Namotu island in Fiji.

Namotu is a tiny little sand island, about 30 minutes from the mainland in the Mamanuca group. I`ve been coming to this magic place for nearly 10 years to guide the fishing boat, surf and have a great time.

Fiji has so many options that change with the seasons. Basically summer is yellowfin tuna time and wahoo for winter, with GTs, dogtooth, walu (relative to the Spanish mackerel), coral trout, green jobfish and other reef fish available all year round.

My last stint was in March and we had a good run of yellowfin up to 20kg, with fish to 70kg caught earlier in the season. When the tuna are on around Namotu it's quite easy to get onto them, with large schools busting bait and all of the bird action sometimes visible from the resort deck. I was fortunate enough on one occasion to see two large fin whales rising up through the school of bait, mouth open, gorging themselves on the white bait. This spectacular sight made even more so by the presence of tuna, franticly feeding on the excess bait as it spilled from the mouth of the whale. It was probably the best experience I've ever had in all my years of fishing in Fiji.?

Trolling small feathers is the general method for yellowfin with guests on board but as soon as those rods go off and the guests are fighting fish the boat is stopped and I'm into the school with a ZMan 5" StreakZ or dropping down a 4oz TT Lures Tournament Series XHD jighead with a ZMan 8" StreakZ XL in Pearl, depending on wind and the distance from the school.

Ninety percent of the time the school will be traveling up wind, so I always try to position the boat in front of the busting fish, trolling back and forth. That way, when you do get the hook up, the boat will drift down wind close to the school enabling a cast to be put in or a jig dropped. It also keeps you a little bit closer to the school once the fish is landed so that you can get back onto them quicker.

With copious amounts of reef it can be daunting trying to decide where you would like to drop a plastic. A good starting point is an area where the current pushes directly on a reef face or pinnacle, such as a ledge in a channel as the tide pushes in. This is where the bait should be hanging and a nice show on the sounder could see you tight before your lure hits the bottom, so be aware!

My starting weight is 3oz and I`ll use this in any depths from 15m to 70m. From 50m+ I`ll generally use a 4oz to 8oz, depending on strength of current and it's always teamed up with a ZMan 8" StreakZ XL and some Bloody Tuna Pro-Cure Super Gel Scent as a final enhancement. Trout, jobfish, longnose, trevally, barracuda and walu have all fallen victim to the jigged plastic.

The same method in the middle of the night can see some interesting species landed. I always use a big StreakZ XL in Glow and always keep it freshly charged. Dogtooth love to chomp a charged up StreakZ but then comes the hard part, stopping him before he gets to the sharp edge to sever your braid! The first run of a large hound is something that needs to be seen to be believed; you can tighten the drag all you want and they just run harder, testing every part of your equipment and your body. I'm still yet to land one.

Then there's the flats fishing, where 1/2oz to 1oz jigheads with a ZMan 5" StreakZ or ZMan 5" GrubZ, small poppers or shallow running minnows will entice a number of species that call the shallows home. Falling tide is best; positioning the boat way up on top of the reef to drift through the deeper channels and constantly casting downwind toward these areas. Don't bother letting the head get too close to the bottom as touching the reef is nearly a guarantee of getting snagged. If you do spot a fish honing in on your lure don`t stop, keep it moving if you have room and even speed up.

These techniques will be sure to work all throughout the Pacific, no matter what island chain you choose to visit, so get out there and book a trip to beat the cold.