June in Sydney and we were more than ready to head for our annual winter holiday to the Pacific. We were looking for the warm weather plus the Pacifika culture we missed so much in Sydney after living in Auckland for 10 years … oh yes, and a bit of spearing too. We have a Fiji family connection (my wife’s father’s family is from Fiji) and love the people here so Fiji was the target – we hate resorts so decided to head to one of the less developed islands in the north – Taveuni – which also has some of the best diving in Fiji. We booked into two different houses that were self-contained but with caretakers to help out. Both of the houses were amazing, as were our host caretakers. They had beautiful water views and easy access for great shore dives plus short boat trips to great offshore pinnacles and reefs. I warmed up with some inshore reef shore dives – bigger target spearing fish were not plentiful but they were to be found, however what I was really looking for was bigger offshore pelagics … the usual suspects: Wahoo, Spanish Mackeral, and Dogtooth and Yellowfin tuna. As it turned out (as per usual I had done no research – but thankfully my lovely wife had done so to find the place!) it wasn’t tuna season but the Spanish and Wahoo were on. I did two boat trips out to some awesome pinnacle reefs coming up from 200-300m+ to about 7m at the top – Champion Reef, Break-knot Reef and Matei Rocks. The first trip was to Champion and Break-knot via an intro from our taxi driver mate. Without a GPS it was impressive they could find these relatively small reefs quite a few miles out to sea – I guess a lifetime fishing on the island and they know it pretty well. The first reef was pretty quite – bait fish were around but the vibe wasn’t “on”. The reef dropped off quite quickly down to 20m and then with a small shelf dropped off into the depths. Vis was 20-25m which was consistent most of the time were on the island. Nice again. Moving to the next reef things picked up a bit and suddenly some smallish wahoo turned up right on the surface (seems that is where they hang out – all the ones I saw were within 5m of the surface). I was diving with my 1.5m gun with Riffe slip tip and breakaway system – awesome for big fish but it’s a big heavy beast and trying to keep it stable while aiming from the surface was challenging and the wahoo were keeping their distance. I decided to take a shot at maybe an 8kg specimen and the shot struck home – as expected it put on a huge burst of speed stripping out line at a great rate of knots but foolishly I tried to keep pressure on it to keep it off the reef (another of many lessons on this my first proper tropical spearing trip – wahoo don’t go for the reef like Kingies do but seem to run along the surface – the ones I hit did anyway) and it busted off. Stink. We moved on to break-knot and I did a full circuit before finding the bait fish “hot spot” – as in NZ I find you need to find this spot and hang out there to have any chance at the bigger fish. I had a school of decent sized Barracuda come in but passed them up as I understand they are crap eating. My patience paid off as eventually around the point came a lone Spanish of about 8-10kg – he wasn’t in too much of a hurry and made for a pretty easy shot. He put up a short decent fight … but not the killer gear-busting experience I was hungry for! During the middle of the trip we had a great family snorkelling trip to the legendary “Rainbow reef” to the SW of the island – the coral was the best I have seen anywhere in the world. It was great that the kids saw a shark (white tipped reef) but didn’t freak out … good to de-sensitise them at an early age! I saw plenty of them during the trip … but more on that later. I also did a few more shore dives and scored a nice Mangrove Jack and a some big kind of Mackeral (looked like a Queenfish) – I made sure I only took one fish per dive as that was all we needed. The second last day of the trip (today – I am writing this sitting on the deck overlooking the amazing Islands in the heat!) and it was time for one last offshore trip. Having seen Wahoo on the previous trip, and felt a pretty small one run, I was keen on finding a big-un. We were now staying at a second house and the caretaker Isoa had a boat and offered to take me out. We started at Matei Rocks early-morning where I saw a school of wahoo and took a long shot that missed – bummer, but none of them were bigger than the ones I’d seen previously. We headed further north to a long reef system dropping off on the northern tip facing the deep water. Shortly into the dive the wahoo started turning up – and these were nice big ones – again close to the surface and cruising quite slowly (though warily). I had a shot at one but I think the clear water must have tricked me as the shot fell short. It was massively frustrating as while I was loading up (which takes a while with double rubber and slip tip) there were big 10-15kg wahoo swimming around me slowly! Mental torture. Of course just as I reloaded they disappeared. Based on previous experience it seemed once they spooked and left they didn’t come back. I was gutted. I decided patience was the right course of action and so after waiting for 5 mins looking off in the direction in which they had departed I eventually scanned around a massive one just appeared out of nowhere – he wasn’t moving fast but was turning and making it difficult for a clear shot – and I wanted to make sure as I knew this was a big one, the one I’d been looking for. He wouldn’t give me a broadside and eventually started to head out to deeper water – I thought now or never and let a shot off aiming into his flank. The line raced off – I was on! He didn’t run as hard and fast as I feared (I’d seen really big wahoo drag big Riffe floats to the depths before). He made about four decent runs, again all along the surface, and each time I gently let the line through my hands as I had no idea how good the shot was. Eventually I could see the slip tip had toggled through the gill plate – he wasn’t going anywhere … About this time the taxmen showed up – about 5 of them as we drifted out into the deep water. Great. I looked up and called to Isoa but he was on the other end of the reef and couldn’t hear me. I was sharked as bro’! Fortunately I managed to get the fish up and iki-ed quickly from then, and they were only reef sharks and never got close enough for me to need to fend them off with the gun. I tell you with the fish in my hands I was going to fight them for it as needed! Eventually I made it back to the shallows and got Isoa’s attention. We took some photos in the water and then in the boat before heading for home. Back at the house the fish went 42 lb – magic, this was the one I’d been looking for. We had some sashimi for lunch and Isoa is making up some Kakonda for dinner – double magic. We’re back to Sydney tomorrow (my wife just told me it’s 6 degrees there today) – we’ll miss our true island paradise, the great friends we have found (and fed!) here, and I can’t wait to come back next year even though we haven’t even left yet. - Kingie