Wahoo

 This June saw Horizon head back up to the Northern Islands for six days with the Caelli family from Melbourne on board. Charlie and James took them to their home islands of Paama and Ambrym and the family experienced the   hospitality of the islands with cultural dancing and some local food. Congratulations to Paul for his first Blue Marlin which was donated to the local villages. There was plenty of fun on board as the family enjoyed fishing for  Wahoo, Dog Tooth Tuna, Mahi Mahi and after snorkeling they bottom fished whilst dinner was being prepared. We offer Live aboard trips from April—December each year. Horizon is back to the islands in September so keep posted for more reports. 

REEL CAPTURE TAKES OUT EASTER TOURNAMENT 2008

Five boats fished the Tusker Easter Tournament which was held from Havanna Harbour and was fished on Saturday and Sunday. This tournament is 6Kg and under and anglers are put to the test to fish light tackle. The other aim of the tournament is to fish grounds that we don’t often get to. Nevagivup and Reel Capture headed up on Friday afternoon to make our run shorter on the Saturday morning.

The plan for Saturday morning was to head to Nguna with reports of plenty of bait and action up there in the lead up to the tournament. After cease fishing on Saturday, Reel Capture who had Fred and Michelle, Gary and Ingrid on board, had landed a couple of nice Dog Tooth Tuna on 4kg, a Wahoo on 6kg to Michelle which was a new Vanuatu record and some Skip Jack Tuna. The fishing was quite hot on the Saturday with tailing Sailfish in the area as well. Reel Capture raised three Sails to no avail. Results after Saturday had Reel Capture in the lead, followed by Half Cut, V-Factor and Nevagivup. Paul fishing aboard Nevagivup landed a nice 2.4Kg Skip Jack on 2Kg line class which was also a new Vanuatu record.

Sunday sore the weather a little calmer as well and also the fishing was allot slower as it was the day after the full moon. Sunday was also a shorter fishing day with cease fishing at 12pm. Reel Capture landed another nice 17.6Kg Wahoo on 6kg line to Michelle (who broke her record from the day before) and a nice Yellowfin Tuna on 4kg to Gary. After hearing the scheds during the day, we knew that we had the comp in the bag. With 1 1/2hours left until cease fishing, Fred decided to head out wide to try and catch a Marlin on 6kg line. We stumbled across quite a few birds working and as soon as we started working the area we hooked a nice Blue Marlin on 6kg, only to have him fall off! The gear went back into the water and 5 minutes later we hooked another small Blue only to have him also fall off. Cease fishing was called and we didn’t want to leave the fish but had to head back to Havanna Harbour to weigh our fish in.

The final results of the tournament were;

Best Angler                              Michelle Temminck

Best Boat                                  Reel Capture

Most Meritorious Capture           Fred Temminck

Best Capture                            Fred Temminck

Second Place                             Half Cut

Third Place                                Nevagivup

All in all it was a fantastic weekend away with plenty of laughs and of course too many beers! This is the second year running that Reel Capture has won this tournament and we are looking forward to next Easter already!

JB from Mooloolaba in Queensland, Australia caught this nice little Wahoo on board Horizon so close to Port Vila that you can see it in the background.

A proud angler holds on tight to this very nice Wahoo taken off the sea mounts 41 NM South of Port Vila aboard Nevagivup.

Four happy anglers aboard Nevagivup help each other display this medium-sized wahoo taken off Nguna island.

Nevagivup delivers yet again with this very outstanding Wahoo supported by a very happy angler with the help of the deck hands.

Horizon does it again with this very nice young Wahoo.  Wahoo are one of the fastest pelagic species and a big one can strip line off you reel at up to 80 kilometers per hour.

Stuart fished with us on board Reel Capture for 5 days in September in the hunt for some rather big fish. On the Marlin side, the fishing was very quiet by Vanuatu standards but on our last day we headed up to Nguna to see what we could find up North. We ended up seeing 8 free jumping Sailfish, hooked a lot of extra large Wahoo and got blown away by some rather large Dogtooth Tuna around the 50-70 Kg mark. They managed to make mince meat out of 80 lb tackle. If you are after these amazing fighters, then Nguna is the spot! Be prepared to be blown away as they are awesome to try and catch!

With a whopping 30 charters in August and 36 charters in September, Crusoe Fishing Adventures has had it’s busiest months since we have been here!

Leanne and her partner Tim fished with us in August and managed to fish a day on each of our boats. Their end tally was 7 Blue Marlin raised, 4 hooked and 1 tagged. The fish were winning that week! They also ended up with a nice mixed bag of Yellowfin Tuna, Wahoo, Mahi Mahi and also raised a couple of Sailfish. The pictures are of Leanne with a small Vanuatu Yellowfin and Tim with a nice Bull Mahi Mahi.

This month I am going to list the newsletter stories individually on our blog as it is more suited for that format.

Reel Capture has been on a roll the last two months with winning 3 out of the 4 tournaments that have been held in Port Vila over the last two months. The first win was the Tusker Easter Tournament which was held from Havanna Harbour, the second win was the ITM Group which was fished over four days and the latest win was the Vanuatu Marlin Classic which concluded on the 1st of June.

Tusker Easter Tournament

The Tusker Easter Tournament was fished over the Easter weekend and was a 6Kg and under line class tournament. 12 Boats entered the tournament and stayed overnight at Havanna Harbour and enjoyed the hospitality of Gideon’s landing along with a few cold beers and lots of stories of the ones that got away on light tackle. Reel Capture was skippered by Fred Temminck and the crew was his wife Michelle, Paul and Shane. Fred also managed two new Vanuatu records on 4Kg with a Mahi Mahi weighing 6.6Kg and a Wahoo weighing 10.2Kg. The result was 7 Wahoo and 1 Mahi Mahi which saw Reel Capture take out Champion Boat, Best Capture and Best Angler went to Fred.

ITM Fishing Group

Over the last four years, the ITM fishing group (NZ) has been holding it’s own tournament out of Port Vila. 5 boats were used to accommodate the keen anglers and fishing was held over four days. Reel Capture was skippered by our new skipper Charlie Tui and had a different team fish on the boat each day. Reel Capture landed a nice 72Kg Yellowfin and tagged a 400pound Blue Marlin and also bought in a few nice Wahoo. This saw Reel Capture take out Champion boat, Champion skipper and crew for the tournament.

Vanuatu Marlin Classic

In it’s fourth year running the Vanuatu Marlin Classic was held from the 26th May - 1st June from the Waterfront Port Vila. There were 21 teams entered and each team was allowed to fish 3 days each. Team A onboard Reel Capture was skippered by Charles Wheeler and the crew consisted of Fred, Gabby, Shane and Steve flew in from Australia. Team A managed to tag a Sailfish and lost a nice 700 pound Blue Marlin on 30 pound line. Team B fished the last 3 days and was skippered by Charles Wheeler and the crew consisted of Michelle, Grant and Sparkey. On the team’s first day they raised a total of 5 Blue Marlin and only one fish decided to eat and Michelle tagged a nice 300 pound Blue Marlin on 30 pound! (which was the only Marlin tagged on 30 pound for the whole tournament). The second day was very quite with only one fish raised. Day three saw Grant tag a nice 150 pound Blue Marlin on 50 pound. This put Team B in the lead with 3,130 points and of course we cleaned up! Team B will also be heading to Cabo San Lucas next May to fish the Rolex tournament. Team B has already rebooked again for next year’s tournament!