We had an unusual summer of popper casting for GTs with the La Nina weather paterns making for unfavourable conditions and sometimes a very poor bite by our standards.
On a normal summer season day with a couple of anglers popping we expect around a 10 GT average and 15-20 on a hot bite day. This season we averaged about 5....
One after another, summer tropical depressions came by to the West of the Fiji Islands on their way South. Normally they sink by us to the East. These tropical lows sent some sizable South Westerly swells that churned up the inner lagoon water...which emptied out of the passageways. They also stalled the current that normally sweeps along the outer barrier reef bring clear oceanic waters. So coloured water emptied out of the lagoons...and just stayed there with little or no current to clear it away.
The solution aboard Bite Me - Stickbaits !
In a normal year we generally catch 75% of our GTs on poppers...This year we landed at least half the GTs on stickbaits.
The Nomad Wahho & Dogtooth stickbaits were very effective
Also the Orion Bigfoot in Fusilear colour
The best poppers this season were still the Cuberas, Craftbaits, Buffalo, Orions and of course if you have the cash..FCL and Hammerheads...
Cubera / El Toro still produced
Even so, some late summer season anglers did get some reasonably good GT fishing with most fish averaging 15-20kg and a few bigger ones around the 25-30kg.
Now that's a seriously long pencil for a Bluefin Trevally !
