Vanuatu Fishing Trip!

Vanuatu has become a pretty popular bluewater destination for Australian anglers over the last few years. The islands are relatively easy to access, the locals are friendly and the fishing can be outstanding, particularly for anyone chasing big dogtooth, yellowfin and GT.

We fished with Drop Cast Charters on a liveaboard trip that ran from Luganville on Santo in the north, fishing our way down through the islands to finish in the capital Port Vila.

Fishing with Drop Cast  - Fantastic boat, crew and food!

Drop Casts 46ft Cresta Amalu is ideal for jigging and casting for all kind of big fish- the massive flat bow area and angler friendly rails allow 3 people to cast in comfort off the front. The bow height presents some challenges for working certain floating stickbaits, but it also gives you a fantastic view of the fish coming up to look at your lure and makes it very easy to cast long distances.

Doggies, both on topwater and jigs are one of the biggest attractions on DropCast!

The country is quite mountainous, due to the constant volcanic activity. It is so volcanically active that new islands made of ash have appeared in the ocean, then slowly washed away over the course of a few years. The underwater topography is very similar with large numbers of underwater mountains and remnants of old volcanoes scattered in between each of the islands in the archipelago. So when you are jigging, you may be in open waters, but sitting on the top of a seamount in 60m. The next drop might be 120m then 170m on the edge of the mountain before the bottom drops away to 300m or more in depth. Likewise, when casting you may be casting up into the shallows around an island with your lures landing in the backs of breaking waves, while on the opposite side of the boat the water drops away to 50m or more in depth.

The Volcanic islands create their own little weather systems that shroud the mountaintops in cloud and rainstorms for much of the day

The fishing with Dropcast really does live up to its name. As the deep and shallow spots are all packed so close to one another, you can go from casting poppers on a island edge to dropping jigs 150m down on an underwater seamount, and then back to casting again in the space of a few drifts. There are so many potential dropoffs, ledges, pinnacles and coral edges that the captain Andrea wastes no time in moving on if the bites arent forthcoming.

Fishing around the lava flows on Lopevi Island - the water is about 70m deep here, within casting distance of the edge

Phong with a cracker GT caught on the jig!

Whenever you go fishing in a truly wild location, you would typically think that monster fish are going to be everywhere and constantly chewing their heads off. Most anglers realise that spots have their up and down times, no matter remote you are and on this trip the fish were definitely challenging to get a committed bite from. There were lots of bumps and knocks on the jigs and short strikes or gill plate slaps against topwater lures, so we put a lot of effort in to make the most of every single hookup. The crew of Andrea driving the boat and deckies Roy and Tom never gave up or slowed down for the entire week we fished and they treated each hookup like it was going to be the next monster catch. It was due to this level of hard work from the team, that we managed to land a very respectable number of fish for the week, including an awesome PB topwater Doggie for me!

While big Dogtooth and GTs do hog the limelight in Vanuatu quite a bit, it was some of the smaller species that really fired up for us. The much sought after Maori Sea Perch are an uncommon or incidental catch in many places, but for us they were one of the more prominent catches through the week. All the fish were taken on topwaters in very shallow waters and they showed no hesitation in tackling larger lures. The MSP fight hard, like any other big lutjanid species and do not hesitate to rub you off in the reef, given the slightest chance. These fantastic fish, along with some of the monster size Bluespot trout that inhabit Vanuatu will be some of the main targets next time I visit!

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