Well we leave for New Zealand tomorrow to chase their massive kingfish on top water and jigs, and if you haven't seen the news a container ship has crashed in Tauranga where we were supposed to fish. I spoke with the skipper and we will be fishing now out of Whitianga. Hopefully the fishing is just as good!

Rompin video

I finally found time to piece together the footage from our trip to Kuala Rompin in Oct 2010

Custom Synit Deepshot Seriola build pics

Im having a custom jigging rod built for an upcoming trip to New Zealand. The rod is a Synit Deepshot Seriola which will be suitable to knock over almost any fish you will encounter on a jig. Its 5'1" rated for PE5 - PE10 lines, can handle a huge 22 kg of drag and a wide jig range 180 gram - 550 gram. I cannot wait to get my hands on this rod! Graeme from Synit sent me some picks of the lower section of the build which has been completed. This rod is the same blank as the Deepshot Tuna pro (as it is badged in the Northern Hemisphere). I opted for the blue dyed blank similar to in this review.

Synit reel seat

Tuna etching on grip

Deepshot!

Tuna Jigging Sydney Wide

With many weeks of large seas there was finally a break in the weather and we jumped at the chance to head out and try to catch some yellowfin tuna jigging and cubing. We only managed a couple of Albacore tuna to about 12 kilos on the jig, but it was good to put a bend in the fake lez.

We hooked up to what was either a huge yellowfin or a bluefin tuna on a cube, it hung on the surface for a few mins then when it realized it was hooked dove 700 meters down before popping the trace. I caught the last few minutes of the fight on camera.

Owned by monster from Patrick Cooper on Vimeo.

GT popping in Kadavu Fiji

I've just returned from 5 days fishing in Kadavu, Fiji. We had fantastic weather and though it was hard work we managed some good fish. We popped for 3 days, jigged for 1 and spent a day chasing marlin, however we only raised one sailfish. We saw a few bust ups from yellowfin tuna but unfortunately no luck at casting a stickbait at them. We were monstered when jigging by some beasts of the deep, and next time I will add a PE8 jigging outfit to the list as a must have. The most successful popper was also the cheapest we had on board, a Kronik big boppa 150 which was almost left at home! The fish took a liking to Baby Runbohs as well, however after 1 fish they were pretty much ruined.

Getting ready for Fiji..

Starting to get a little bit excited.. this time in a week I'll be boarding a plane to Fiji. We are spending 5 days fishing out of Kadavu Island on 'Bite me'. Popping for GT's on great astrolabe reef and jigging for Dogtooth tuna at cape washington sea mount.. I have spent all week checking, packing and re-packing tackle..

Hopefully the fishing gods smile on us!

Tight lines!