Feb/March 2023 Edition

Port Vila is the harbourside capital of Efate Island, the town a buzz with locals, tourists, shops, cafes and waterside eateries. The marina area is directly behind the shops which overlook islands near and far. Archer decided to try their luck and flick soft plastics using our trusted Black Magic Line and Leader. It wasn’t long before he had drawn a crowd of locals. With English being their second language, it was understood that they had never seen soft plastics before, nor do they often see people fishing in the marina. It wasn’t long and Archer started catching fish, an array of tropical fish which we had never seen before including flute and tusk fish. On winding in a cod, Arch was caught by surprise when a barracuda chomped his fish, the excitement from the locals witnessing this, brought even more of a crowd, including the local police who were just as eager to see photos of what else had been caught.  Roughly after an hour of fishing, a Senior Police Officer apologetically told Archer that fishing was not allowed in the area he was, so unfortunately that put an end to his session. The memories, however, will always remain.

Our next fishing destination was simple beach fishing near Eratap. We literally walked 10 meters from the front door of our accommodation and were able to cast a line into the sea. After two days we worked out tide change and had discovered the best time to fish was low tide as this allowed us to cast out past the drop offs along the sandbank. The best window we found was early evening and was lucky to last 30 minutes. After catching many small GT’s and blue fin trevally, we endearingly named this spot ‘trevally beach’. This certainly helped keep the kids entertained, nearly every second cast resulted in a fish. Using the 12lb Hyperglide 13x Braid with 12lb fluorocarbon proved to be a winning combo. We also managed to catch some other species including emperors, dart and blue moon wrasse.

Aside from the fish Dean gave away, we only kept one other GT and this one the chef at the resort was all too happy to prepare delicious fresh sashimi. I was given a backstage pass to the kitchen where I got to meet the chef and sous chefs and talk all things seafood! What a treat indeed.

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As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end, and so we had to come home. A brilliant holiday was had, and the kids are already asking to go back.

Not quite ready to go back to work however, Dean had a quick session in Port Philip Bay and brought home a nice feed of snapper to end the summer holidays.

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This editions recipe, Creamy Snapper Parcels, is a great one that also freezes well. My hot tip for this recipe is to double batch. Cook both batches and freeze half so that on those nights you need a night off cooking, simply place the parcels in the oven to reheat!

From river to plate or sea to fork,

Cara

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