Great sea reef expedition Fiji - Jan 2010

Saltywater expedition trip to Fiji was a total blast with great time spend around friends,
After all the success in the past to land big fish I consider myself a bit spoiled,
from another point of view the guys had so much fun and caught different species and some of us ended up adding new species to the list,
i decided to explore a different area this time and when it comes to exploring the result could be good or bad, i consider this trip to be somewhere in the middle and leave the judgment up to the viewer,
Igor and i flew from New York to LA to meet up with Jose who joined us on our journey.
We fished the Great sea reef and headed out from Labasa in Vanua Levu,
Steaming out of the river we headed west to the open Ocean,
We landed a total of 104 fish in 4 and a half day, the biggest estimated GT is around 25KG,
36 GT been landed and the rest is Coral trout, jobfish, Barracuda, Napoleon wrasse, blue fin trevally, long nosed emperor, red bass, mahi, skipjack tuna, grouper, footballer trout,
the first day saw some nice result on the frontier of Kia's islands, we landed 23 fish on our first day and we kept on heading west till we reached Yadua passage, we went as far as 40 miles out, on the 3rd day before we start heading back and right at that point i had the biggest hit on a lock drag, the fish hit black craft bait popper GT 3 ultra big mouth, one of the nicest violent hit, if it wasn't for the railing that was on the boat i would have be thrown into the water, the fish came in pushing water and raising it’s body out of the water, i estimated that fish to be over 35kg easily, my handle went backwards before i realize how hard the train had hit me, all what it took was a push from one side of the boat to the other to end up being reefed and the fish gained its freedom, to tell you the truth that was my longest night on board as i hardly been able to close my eyes that night,
in the past year I’ve been anxiously trying to get a Napoleon wrasse and that early morning paid off for me, i knew later that my 3 years old son was praying for me at night to catch a big fish, i think right above us there is a big power watching, his prayer came in to reality and God just answered to his prayer, the reward came in not that big as a size but big enough in my eyes to bring me a smile and a smell of success, deep inside i was ready to head back home and be with my loved one, the way i came in to fish is the way i am heading back home Anxiously.
we had the best morning ever, we all landed a good size fish and i saw Igor's fight his best fish on light tackle and landing a nice GT that gave me a great satisfaction to bring a smile on everybody' face,
Jose's footballer trout came in as a surprise, beautiful color make you appreciate the beauty of the ocean,
the last day was a bit slow and we decided to head back a bit early and try to get a marlin to add to the variety but seems our luck just ended at the reef and not far away to the open blue water,
Tackle used: all Shimano reel 2002 model and 2008 model,
Rods: Sevenseas big pop, Smith Tokara, Smith 80p35, Fisherman GT game TRS, Souls ps075 p3cs,
I would like to thank Ika Levu fishing Charters for there services,
Enjoy the picture!