In December Bec and I headed over to Fiji for 3 weeks for my brother's (Chris) wedding. I did take the 9wt but didn't end up using it (sacrilegious I know). I was intent on chasing GTs and the big spin gear got a good work out.
The fly fishing potential particularly in the North of the country is unlimited - plenty of inshore mangroves / shallow coral reef with lots of drop offs and flats all protected by outer barrier reef systems. Of course you can tangle with big nasties on the outside too. I made some good contacts/friends over there and plan to head back - it could be a pretty good trip if there was any other interest. Apart from the flights, it's pretty damn cheap as well!
A few pictures -
Some of the arsenal:
The reef system and fishing in this particular area was pretty untouched:
The GoPro HD Hero2 got a good workout doing video and stills in the water:
School of Big Eye trevally:
My guide Nick with a corker of a yellow lip Emperor on a stickbait - top bloke and mad fishermen. He just took delivery of an amazing new boat in Jan!
Caught a fair few GTs this size and got monstered by some much larger ones (and the biggest Red Bass I've ever seen). It's tough going fishing country littered with shallow bombies - sometimes 80lb braid, 120lb twistees and 14kg of drag isn't enough to stop em.
You don't have to go far offshore to tangle with some good fish! On this particular day there was bait holding on every bombie and a big school of GTs sunning themselves on the surface - it was absolute magic and of course the day my camera battery went flat!!!!
Yeap theres some nasty stuff - 200lb game swivel demolished by something big and angry!
Angry 'cuda (apparently Fijians love to eat them - yuck
There are bonefish around as they are seen at the Markets but as far as where they are caught Nick didn't have a very good idea as they aren't targeted. He did have a few areas he knows of that at low tide created shallow sand flats with channels which looked awfully bone-fishy!
If anyone is interested I can post some more info about where I stayed, the charters etc etc.