A great fishing yarn by Narooma Sport and Game Fishing Club president Les Waldock about the big giant trevally he caught off of a beach at Fiji using light gear:
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Just returned from a wonderful week on Plantation Island Fiji. My daughters 40th birthday was the main reason we visited, spending lots of time with Jeni, hubby and the grandkids.
Even though the resort is a non fishing destination, as many of these Islands are, I've learnt to take a flick stick anyway, just in case a fishing opportunity presents itself.
I have a five-piece Shakespeare travel rod, 2 to 5 kg and I marry it up with a small Penn threadline reel with 6kg Platypus pre-test monofilament line. Some small poppers, trace and swivels, enclose these in a small carry bag or waist bum bag and away you go.
Fishing the Islands from the shore, you normally encounter trevallies and barracudas along with reefy fish that you have never seen, can't identify but are quite beautiful in colour.
I wandered around from the resort to a place we named dead dog beach because the locals told me to be wary of the wild dogs that lived away from the resort. The dead dog name came when some New Zealanders I met around there told me they had heard the dogs had been shot hence the name was given. Anyway I still carried a stick, just in case.
Off this long beach was a reef area, waist to chest high in depth emptying to ankle deep at low tide.
First day of fishing, for a couple of hours, I lost a big barracuda, lost two bluefin trevally and something else which I didn't see.
Encouraged, I went the next morning but the tide was wrong and no matter what I tried, caught nothing except for a beautiful reef fish I have no idea what to call. It took a popper at my feet.
Not to be discouraged, I sacrificed breakfast for an early start the next morning, to get more water before the tide was too low.
The trade wind here is a southeast wind of 10 to 15 knots and this day was no exception. 7.30 am and I'm 50 to 100 metres off the beach in waist deep water, 10 knots of wind, wading horizontal to the beach, casting a popper like a crazy man.
Suddenly, about a hundred metres away, the water turned to foam as something attacked a school of baitfish. I waded in that direction, casting a small three inch green popper where the chaos had occurred. Half an hour later, nothing. In the area where the only fish action I had seen, was now quiet as, the water now receding with low tide starting to show the occasional shallow coral bombie or weed patch.
Time to go, doing a series of casts on the 100 metres or so back to shore.
Out of nowhere, in fairly shallow water, there was a huge displacement of water, virtually as my popper hit the water.
The reel screamed as this fish, I'm thinking reef shark, tore off past me and headed to the edge of the reef some 500 metres or so away. I had no choice but to take off myself, as fast as I could, walking through the waist deep water, following the runaway fish.
The top three hundred metres of my reel is 6kg Platypus pre test so I knew I've got good line out. I had done a lazy man’s spider hitch double of the mainline to a snap swivel so I was regretting taking a shortcut now. When all the Platypus pre-test disappeared and my backing or 'not used line', came past my eyesight, I was in big trouble. This fish was not stopping, motoring straight for the drop off and out of sight.
Fate would have it but I walked straight into a coral rock platform that I could stand on. I stepped up onto this 'platform' and held my rod as high as I could to change the angle on the line to the fish and also try to apply some pressure that I couldn't apply lower in the water.
I could just about see my metal spool through what fishing line was left when, for the first time, I got a wind back on the reel, then another, then another. The fish had stopped and I was actually getting line back.
I did this for a couple of minutes and thought maybe, just maybe, I was a chance to see this fish after all, which is exactly what I wanted to do, just see it, whether it was a shark or something else.
Not happy, the fish bolted again. We're not far from the drop off now so I made the decision to chase it one last time, stepping down from my platform and again walking as fast as I can through the water towards the fish.
I've got to be at least 300 metres from shore with the fish another 100 at least, maybe more, when it stops again. I get a turn on the reel, then another, then turn after turn as unbelievably, the fish starts to come at me.
I'm winding at a steady pace and line, from being just about all gone, fills the spool on the Penn reel. My backing is all back, my top shot or good three hundred metre line reappears rapidly and in no time at all, the fish is near me, swimming at me.
It's been, and I'm guessing, about 45 minutes since I got the hookup and I'm just about to see what it is.
A black shape, about a metre long, comes into view in the crystal clear water and I immediately think reef shark. How wrong was I as another couple of turns of the reel has me a rods length from a giant trevally, its big eye looking at me as it slowly swims past me.
I know if I grab its tail it will do two things, go nuts and also cut my hand to shreds with its razor sharp flukes.
Commonsense tells me just walk with it and let's see what happens.
So, like taking a dog for a walk, I'm walking this trevally back to the sandy shore some hundreds of metres away.
It takes an eternity, the fish only trying twice to do something different but I easily lead it back to "walking the dog".
Without fuss, twenty or so minutes later, I beach the fish, in awe of its size and beautiful looks. It's well over an hour, maybe an hour and a half since I had the hookup.
I quickly snapped the double off and looked for the popper to remove. The fish did not move, the popper so deep in its gills, it died before I could do anything to revive or swim it.
I'm always happy to catch fish but this saddened me how it had ended, hoping to catch and release this beautiful, majestic fish.
I'd ridden the resort push bike down to the location so my next problem was to get it back for photos and disposal.
I had a back pack with me so, when trying to put the fish in it, I realised how big this fish really was! It broke the back pack when I tried to lift the bag, my estimations of a weight around 20 kg plus.
I gave up and went to the Plantation Island golf shop for help, explaining I had caught a fish, too heavy to lift and they could have it if they helped me.
The guy who did help me was Asish, I called him ‘A Fish’. He was great, getting the fish back to our resort, photos taken, got the fish to his freezer so it wouldn't waste, then got me back to the bike so I could ride home.
He was so appreciative of the fish, it will feed his family and friends in the near future and he was humbled by this gift.
So, yes, sadly the fish died and I deliberately didn't go fishing again, whilst here, just in case I hooked another but happy it did not go to waste and what a memorable experience that will live with me forever.