We were all seriously afflicted by marlin fever at the time of boarding our flights for a 6 day marlin bash in the beautiful Fiji islands. With the initial planning for this trip starting over a year earlier, the final countdown to departure day seemed to take forever. Our final destination was Kadavu island, some 90 kilometres south of Suva, where we were to meet up with Brad and the crew of Wai Tadra (Ocean Dream) the next morning to kick off our fishing adventure.

If you’ve ever seen the movie “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” with Steve Martin and John Candy, raise it to the third power, and only then can you have some small degree of appreciation for the hardship we endured just getting to Tiliva resort on the north eastern tip of Kadavu island. Apart from our pilot deciding to land downwind nearly wiping us out, and the Fijian boat driver who recently qualified for F1 racing, managing not to pile us up on the numerous bommies on the way around the island, we arrived at the resort relatively unscathed, if not drained both physically and mentally. This affliction was soon remedied by the oral absorption of copious healing fluids conveniently packaged in green cans.

Having spent our first evening in the salubrious surrounds of the resort we were startled out of bed early the next morning to the breakfast call beaten out on a hollow log. There was absolutely no sleeping through that! The beautiful 40 foot Blackwatch – Wai Tadra collected us from the resort and within minutes of passing though the passage in the Astrolabe reef, we were in over 1000 metres of water and trolling big chuggers and magnums for our target – the mighty blue marlin.

After a slow morning on the marlin front, we decided to spend a couple of hours at the change of the tide chasing wahoo close in on the edge of the reef. Jeff quickly reeled in a dirty, stinking barracuda which was not even allowed on board before being released. Glenn and Jason then had a double hook-up on 25kg wahoo on 10 kg tackle which provided them with some good sport. Shortly afterward Chris and Ged were similarly hooked up on wahoo but both were lost during the fight. The first days fishing ended with everyone having spent some time on a fish.

Day 2 saw us hurtling 25 miles down the eastern side of Kadavu to the seamount off the southern tip of the island. At 21 knots the ride on the boat into a 1.5 metre head sea was unbelievably smooth. Rising from over 2000 metres of depth to a series of peaks as shallow as 160 metres, it certainly looked very fishy on the charts we had been studying for the past year. Unfortunately, the seamount hadn’t been fishing very well recently, and today turned out to be no different. Ged managed a personal best dolphin fish of around 10kg, and Jeff hauled in a jelly bean sized striped tuna that was immediately bridled and live baited for a couple of hours, but without success.

Day 3 like day 1, saw us fishing the “Kadavu Canyons” again as this was the area that had been proving most consistent of late. Glenn pulled in a dolphin fish of around 6 kg that was followed some time later by Jason the “Wahoo Whisperer” managing to extract a 15kg wahoo from low earth orbit in some 2500 metres of water! Jason’s next fishing trip is to Antarctica where he hopes to not catch a wahoo!

Then around 2.15 PM with Chris on strike a solid blue marlin of around 125kg smacks the long rigger and mayhem ensued. The fish charged straight at the boat and tried hard to impale us on its bill before charging past the side of the boat jumping frenetically the whole time. After a 20 minute battle on 37kg stand-up gear, the fish was subdued and brought alongside the boat for a tag and photo op.

Whilst fighting a fish of this size on stand-up tackle was demanding, the process was made very much more manageable by the skilful manoeuvring of the boat by skipper Brad to ensure minimal belly was in the water at all times.

Day 4 saw us again heading out to the same area in the hope of raising another blue marlin. It took a little getting used the fact that we were trolling in over 1000 metres of water only 2 miles from land, and all this before 8.00AM in the morning!

Not that we had long to dwell on this fact as by 8.15AM with Jeff on strike a large blue marlin estimated at 230kg engulfed the short corner and took off for the horizon. While Jeff was getting set in the chair the fish could be seen tearing up the surface some 250 metres behind the boat. All the gear was brought in and Brad put Wai Tadra into “submarine mode” as we backed down on the fish at 10 knots in reverse! With water shin deep in the cockpit the fish finally slowed and went deep. Some 600 metres of line had been stripped from the reel by this time.

Jeff then spent the next hour slugging it out with his similar sized foe before deckie “Wahoo Johnny” was able to grab the leader and the fish was brought alongside the boat for a tag and more photos. The power of the fish was clearly evidenced by the solid build of the fish and the size of the tail that would have measured 1 metre from tip to tip!

The rest of day 4 and all of day 5 was uneventful with Glenn unable to relinquish the strike at any price. Jeff spent day 5 casting poppers and jigs from a native longboat in the lagoon behind the reef system. He managed some local ooglies including cod and bluefin trevally.

Day 6 saw an abbreviated marlin session in the morning before trolling past the northern tip of the reef system to try for some sailfish. Unfortunately, the sailfish weren’t co-operative, and yet Ged managed to foul hook a luckless wahoo that was eventually gaffed and clubbed into insensibility by the now thoroughly bored Chris.

Shortly afterwards lines were brought in and Brad lit up the afterburners for the 35 mile run back to Pacific Harbour on the main island. After yet another ordinary meal (the one consistent feature of the trip), and a harrowing 2 hour mini cab ride across the island in the middle of the night, we arrived in Nadi to overnight before our return flight the next day.

Whilst there were many things we would have done differently if we could have the experience over again, we could not fault the hospitality and professionalism of the crew of Wai Tadra, and would recommend them to anyone wanting to gamefish the deep waters of Fiji.