My how time flies. I have actually not been out on our boat for almost four weeks.
Since my last post the weather turned to crap. I don't mean a little rain and wind, I mean blowing 25 knots for weeks on end and raining like the end of the world. Now I am usually the first to say, fish don't care if it rains, but this weather has been really nasty. We even have "very rough seas" warning put out by the weather people. So, needless to say not a lot of fishing has been done. On top of that I hurt my back,(more of that later).
We did get the chance to go away for a few days as it was Rosies birthday. I booked three nights at
Volivoli Resort. I thought it might be romantic if we could do a bit of popper fishing with heavy gear. You know just the two of us and a skipper.
We stayed at Volivoli back in April, you can read about it
here.
The owners are the Darling family and they are quite wonderful.
The staff are friendly and make you feel like family. Especially, Jenny, Sheba, Wise, Sasha, Pola, Ben, Bola, Amit, Lela, the night watchman, Puncture and all a few I can't remember their names.
We decided to take the back road to get there. We did this the first time also, only this time we had our own truck not a rental car.
You can see the rod tube sticking out of the back end of the truck. I think we had more fishing gear than anything else.
Only about 15 km is not paved and even that was not bad. The new road is being built full swill and soon it will be a breeze to get to the top end of the island.
It is a very scenic drive of about 3.5 - 4 hours. You go through some very pretty and clean villages.
The life style and pace are just a little bit slower.
Eventually you come out from the interior of the island and of course you are greeted with the sea.
We arrived at the resort a little late to fish so it was time to relax and enjoy with our friends.
In this picture is Rosie and Jenny with a tanoa filled with kava.
Nick's wife and child were in New Zealand so jugs kept him company.
This image is me giving instructions to some of there resort guests on how to mix the kava.
The next day we had to wait for the boats to return as the resort was full of scuba divers. We had a leisurely morning and snapped a few pictures for you all.
The weather was less than stellar.
When the boats finally returned and we got to go out, the weather had turned for the worst. Never mind, we are going fishing. Our captain was new to GT popping, but he new where to take us and I could direct the rest. We had a hell of a session. We landed six fish and raised another six in 1 1/2 hours.
Rosie, first on the board.
As you can see the weather was not very cooperative.
This video shows how tough the these fish are. I am using 80lb braid with 120lb twisted leaders and 12kg of drag. By the end os this session I had pinched my sciatic nerve in my lower back. Although I fished the second day also I have paid a heavy price, as I am still laid up with a bad back.
Our second day out fishing proved to be harder than the first. We woke up early on to be greeted by cyclone type conditions.
By noon Rosie and I decided to head to the bar as the weather was not letting up. Well we all know what happens when you go to the bar at noon, you start drinking. And drink we did until after 3:00 pm, when Nick said, "Look the weather is letting up, let's go fish".
So we did. Only this time it was rougher than before. To be honest, it was too rough for fishing in the boat we were in, but we had a few drinks in us and we wanted to fish.
After pounding our way out to the reefs we managed to land a few fish.
We could not stay out very long as it was just too rough, but we did not get skunked.
The next morning we were leaving and of course the weather turned beautiful.
We had a nice easy drive back to Pacific Harbour with lots of great scenery.
Here is a sugar cane train.
I can't wait to get up to VoliVoli Resort again. The fishing is great and if I can get there with the weather good I know it will be epic.
That's all until my back gets better. I am still not 100%.
Tight Lines
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