I was going to write an article about our recent trip to New Caledonia but I have a fair bit going on in the next few months with work and moving etc so I thought, stuff it I will put all the photos up here for everyone to have a look at instead. That way you can enjoy the picks without ever having to fork out 7 or so bucks for a magazine.

Jay Glenn and I set off to New Cal mid Jan of this year in pursuit of some BIGGG GT’s. Unfortunately as you may already know we didn’t really get blessed with favorable weather conditions for our journey, this did make things very difficult at times. We were fishing with reputable new cal charter organization LPB. Quite a few of our friends had fished the area in the past while doing reasonably well. Rudy our skipper and guide and Rastafani the decky were really good company during our stay and made things pretty easy for us. Rudy and Rasta Picked us up after our first night in Noumea (and to many number 1’s which is the local beer) at about 0530 on the first morning of fishing. Our boat was a 27ft edge Water named the GT monster.

Location: well we were somewhere in the south west of the lagoon camping on what was aptly named “Wild Island”. Sea snakes and birds crawled and flew all over this place, my first encounter with the snakes was on night one when in the dark of night sitting by the camp fire one slithered straight over my feet. We did all eventually become accustomed to the creatures even when they were trying to get into our tents at night, “make sure you zip up your tents boys” a quote from our guide Rudy……(jay, did you always remember this advice, cough….hahaha)

Wild Island

Our time on the first couple of days was spent inside the lagoon popping reefs rising from as deep as 55 meters to only a few meters or even dry on occasions. The areas looked extremely fishy and although we did manage a fair amount of by catch it was really really really HARD slogging at times.

First of the trip

We all had a minimum of two GT combos both PE10 and PE12. The most common lure weights ranged from 170-250g unrigged. I concentrated mainly on the GT3 ultra Big mouths and 190g cono cono’s with GT recorder 8/0’s and my 150 and 170g Weezels in between. I am pretty sure jay was using the same as well as patriot master bombs around the 220g size. Glenn used I cups and his favorite cono 150 when he got tired. A Variety of stick baits including bigfoot’s, craftbaits, carpenters and black jacks were also used with a fair amount of success.

Pretty sure on day one Glenn landed a GT of around the 17 or so KG size after not much casting. We had a few really big strikes and follows on the first day but from memory we only landed 3 GT’s for the afternoon (all Glenn’s) as well as some by catch of blue cod (the hardest fighting fish in the ocean, hahaha) bass, trout, tuna, barracuda etc etc

Jays toothy cuda

Day two, we were amped after far to many mantas and number 1’s (local ale) it didn’t matter so much because again the weather was puss for most of the day. Jay and I managed to score a couple of GT’s as well as some solid red bass while Glenn got another couple of GT’s as well. I think the biggest for the trip was at that stage about 23kg (me and pretty happy to as it was on the “pilbara sunrise” coloured Weezel). Again Glenn had a solid hook up on a fish well over 30 but unfortunately he didn’t land it

Dinner

Day three, had some GPS trouble and the bad weather also confined us to the lagoon again. All good managed a few more GT’s reefies like bass, jobfish, tuna, barracuda. Pretty sure this was also the day we had a really eerie late arvo glass off. It was very very very lat and the sun came out, again not very good weather for the G busses but pleasant none the less. Had a jig and managed a small trout before loosing about 8 jigs between us to barracuda, Jay got SMASHED by a pretty good sized dog tooth, unfortunately didn’t land it

GT monster glass off

Day 4 finally got “outside” for a proper dig just for a couple of hours. I managed to get busted off by what looked like a large GT, it appeared to bite the front of my popper on the leader, luckily the lure popped up so we could get it. Good arvo for us, Jay landed his MONSTER WWAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and probably the fish of the trip at 40kg’s, a first for Rudy at LPB, well done mate. Glenn managed 2 GT’s one tipping the scales at around 33kg, not long but a very fat fish, rest and more beer followed that night

Fish of the trip I would say

Biggest of the trip at 35kg’s and a new PB for me

Last day was only a half day fishing and was probably mine, I landed about 7 red bass and the biggest GT of the trip at 35kg’s. Glenn got quite a few petite GT’s and jobfish while I also landed a nice trout and jay also snagged a few bass and other reefies. The 35KG gt was a new PB for me by about 2KG’s but hey, ill take it

We went back to Noumea probably a little disappointed with the fishing but not with the experience, company or the trip as a whole. Great company great beer and an all round great experience was had.

I ended my overseas holiday by spending another week on a tropical island resort with my wife who flew into Noumea the day after our charter. I had 40kg GT’s swimming around my over water bungalow on 2 occasions, was pretty hard to take..

Cheers and I hope you like the pics

PS - I want to place some emphasis one thing. We still managed quite a lot of decent fish and in the report it may look as though we did really well - but believe me it was hard work. There were a lot of hours in between casting and one occasion for me a whole day in between fish. Yes we got some great captures but it just goes to show that in one of the best fishing locations in the world, it can still be tough going……………………