Sunshine State Fishing

Fiji Inshore / Reef Pattern (The ?I don?t care spread?)

The Fiji islands enjoy a whole variety of sport fish species from reef dwelling coral trout to oceanic blue marlin. Whilst we usually target particular species aboard our game fishing vessels here at Matava in Fiji, Bite Me and Offensive Tackle, we sometimes take resort guests out simply to catch dinner and have fun doing so.

It's general fishing (Otherwise known as ?I don?t care what I catch just as long as its big and tasty?) so we aim to cover all our bases and catch a variety of different species.

We run 15kg (30lb) Shimano TLD25 outfits on Excalibur roller tip rods with a 9ft double connected to a short leader. All minnows are rigged on a short single strand wire trace. The sample spread below should give you an idea of how we fish the inner lagoons and fringing reefs for anything and everything found there.

Sample ?I don?t care? spread from our inshore sport fishing boat ?Offensive Tackle?

SHORT CORNER

Target ? Mackerel, Grouper, Red Bass

Halco Sorcerer ? Silver (mullet)
Halco Laser Pro 190 Crazy Deep ? Silver (mullet)

LONG CORNER

Target ? Mackerel, Barracuda, Long Tom

Lurestreet Raptor ? Green / Gold or Red / White

SHORT RIGGER

Target ? Tuna, all Trevally

Wellsys Micro Bullet ? Red black / Pink

LONG RIGGER

Target ? Tuna, all Trevally

Pakula Uzi ? Orange.
Abu Toby Spoon or other metal slug- Silver Target - Queenfish

SHOTGUN

Target ? Mackerel, Tuna, all Trevally

Halco Laser Pro 160 minnow ? Redhead
Pakula Phantom ? Blue Silver / Green Gold (Evil) Target ? Sailfish.
Halco Roosta Popper ? Redhead Target ? Large Great Barracuda & GTs

Species Variety:

Mackerel

Narrow Barred (Spanish) Mackerel
Shark Mackerel
Double lined Mackerel

Tuna

Yellowfin Tuna
Skipjack Tuna
Mackerel Tuna (Kawakawa)
Bigeye Tuna
Albacore

Trevally

Giant Trevally
Bluefin Trevally
Bigeye Trevally
Brassy Trevally
Golden Trevally

Barracuda

Great Barracuda
Chevron Barracuda
Bigeye Barracuda

Grouper

Coral Trout
Lyretail Grouper
Peacock Grouper
Rock Cod

Where we get our Inshore lures :

Wellsys Tackle

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Adrian was born on the island of Cyprus and graduated to his first rod & reel at the age of five. Having fished around the world from the Arabian Gulf to the North sea and English Channel, he finally settled for the tropical waters of the South Pacific around the island of Kadavu, Fiji Islands. Director of Matava Resort Gamefishing, he skippers 'Bite Me', the resort's 31ft DeepVee Gamefishing vessel and thoroughly enjoys exploring the light and heavy tackle fishing around the island and Great Astrolabe Barrier Reef. An IGFA Certified Captain, he advocates tag & release and is a keen supporter of the IGFA and the Billfish Foundation.

Adrian Watt,
IGFA Captain
http://www.matava.com
http://www.gamefishingfiji.com
http://www.gamefishingfiji.blogspot.com/

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