Fiji Mini and X Bar Test Results

[jmacallister]

Dr. Fred,
Through the good graces of David Jones at Fishermens Fleet, I was able to introduce your mini and X bars to the locals at Turtle Island Resort in Fiji last week. In previous years, I have shown these folks cedar plugs, Marauders, and EALs and this year's tutorial worked out better than all the others so far. What follows is a meandering report on a week's worth of fishing and equipment testing.

First, the usual list of excuses.

Full moon.
Return of NE trade winds ("the 8 day winds").
Expected the usual Penn International 30s; got Penn 6-0s and only two of them rather than the usual four.
One day reduced to a two hour trip because the other angler got called back to the dock for medical treatment (wifey was nervous about his case of pink eye).
One day reduced to a one hour trip because the newlyweds on the boat turned green and well, you know.
One day lost entirely due to contaminated fuel.

All that aside, here's what happened. We first benchmarked the tackle the resort was using - a Rapala CD 22 and a jet head of some sort. Dragged both and few others for an entire day. Nada.

Second day, we used an X bar and the Rapala. Results: the wind was howling and the CD 22 wouldn't stay in the water. The X bar brought in two rainbow runners to 20#. Then we put out a mini bar and ran it against a cedar plug. Same results. Plug zero, mini bar 2 barracuda to 18#. Went home sort of happy.

Third day, put an X bar and mini out. Lots of wind again but we scratched out a few more rainbow runners. Found a school of Yellow Fin Tuna and worked it for a hour with no results no matter what we put out including hand lining hoochies. Full moon, remember.

Day four, went back to comparing your gear to everything else in my bag and the captain's tackle box. You won everytime. This was the one calm day we had - see photos - and, of course, the fish size dropped off appreciably.

So the bottom line is that without Pargon's help and your gear, I would have been dining on rare roast beef, pulled pork, and free range chicken for nine days instead of the grilled fish I got for dinner every night. I'm a lucky guy I guess.

We learned a few things while testing:

Wire, wire, wire! It's like every species in the south Pacific is blessed with an extra set of teeth. We lost three chase baits to these critters. Two of them must have been dyslectic because they hit the bait with the swivel, not the hook. Odd.

Contrasting colors between the bait school and chase bait produced better results than complementary colors.

I chained two 6 oz torpedo sinkers to the X bar when things got really rough and that seem to produce better. Not sure why.

I wish I had more pictures to show but most of the time I was hanging on to pontoon straps to stay in the boat.

All the lame excuses and whining aside, these suckers work and made for a great few days of fishing.

Thanks.

John

[peptobiz]

Thanks for the report on the bars John. I hope to be adding some of my own in the very near future. Sounds like you had a very good trip!

[BiteMeFiji]

Hi John,
Sorry to read you had some difficult weather and green guest troubles during your fishing up in the Yasawas. You seemed to be catching a bit of bait though. That fish in the first picture is a double lined mackerel, otherwise known as a scad and the second is a Kawakawa or Mackerel tuna. Both make excellent marlin and sailfish baits. Did you run any as skip or swimming baits ?
The scad can be rigged on wire with a stinger hook and will not only take billfish but should also be hit by Narrow barred Spanish mackerel, wahoo and barracuda. That spreader bar in the middle of the spread should be a good teaser as well.
Adrian