Brassy Trevally (Carangue Mouchetee) from New Caledonia

I'm currently in New Caledonia visiting my family in Noumea.

At the same time, it's a great opportunity to do some fishing as NC is very good for this sport. I took with me a YongSung Power Carbon Alpha 3.9m cargo iso rod.

First day catching 11 garfish with my mate Thai who came with us. This spot is a little jetty at 10 minutes walk from my parent's place.

We also went camping on a remote island not far from my place. What an experience. Lots of mosquitoes but it was so good to be with friends and family out there in the nature. We caught a bream and several fingermarks. The next early morning, we even spotted a shark not far from the shore.

The day Thai's left NC flying back to Sydney, I hooked up with a big fish on a metal slice but the 8lb line was too weak and my drag was too tight, so the line broke. On the second day I hooked up with another one but the fish spat put the soft plastic Kamikaze shad.

On the third attempt, it was a quiet start, it was 3 hours before low tide and the sky was well covered but not raining. I had bought a popper and more metal slice but it was so quiet that I decided to target smaller fish using a Gulp 3" prawn. I lost all my jigheads to the snags so ended up using a regular hook with two splitshots above it. No seagulls or jumping baitfish today, I was starting to doubt I would get any results today. But after 2 hours of persistance, something took my lure. I thought it would be a local grouper but it wasn't heading back to the rocks, instead it suddenly pull my line out to the depth. I could not stop it from going deeper and deeper. The fish just peeled my line from my Okuma Lebra (lever brake reel) 2500 spool which I've upgraded with some 15lb braid line as I didn't want to loose another fish.

After 7 minutes of fight, I managed to bring the fish to the surface, it was a Brassy Trevally of a very good size. Not wanting to take any risk of loosing it, I used my DIY landing net (potatoes net bag) I safely landed the fish.

This was the fishing spot (Port Moselle), I was standing at the corner of the rocky edge on the right.

The fish measured 66cm, but as it was cut at the throat, I think it's more or less 65cm.

I hope I will get the opportunity to get more fish like this before my return.

Hope you guys had a lovely Christmas, best wish for the last days of 2014!

Update:

The brassy trevally could actually be a young bluefin trevally

My best winter fishing trip of the year

Tina (pictured above), our former landlady and now a very good friend, tooks us down to Wollongong to see her big brother Ching who is a keen fisherman for over 20 years. He knows the good fishing spots in the surroundings. After more driving, we then arrived in Crookhaven Heads, Culburra Beach NSW.

We started fishing in the evening and got some not wow but legal size tailors:

I also caught a Shovelnose Ray:

Another fisherman gave us a fish he caught, probably a barracuda, that we used the next day as burley.

After a great diner that Tina has prepared, I went for an early bed time.

The alarm rang at 5am, but Chung was still asleep, he was on a night shift last day so was really tired. At 6am he finally woke up and the two of us went back to the fishing spot. At around 7am, the fish were on, in the next couple of hours we caught 16 really good size Tailors and Salmons all on pilchards.

For this trip, I brought with me my cheapo Saratoga Mawler Spin 11' rid with a Shimano Aerlex 8000 XSA. Chung gave me as a gift his old 12' Shakespear surf rod and lent me a small Bite 'N Run reel. I ended up buying his other Daiwa Regal 4000 BRi reel. They are equivalent to Shimano's Baitrunner reels.

Our rigs were simply a running sinker and a ganghook.

After 9am, the fish all went off, no more bites so at near 11am we called it a day.

Back to the holiday house, Tina prepared us a Sashimi of Australian Salmon. I can see most of you frowning here "What, you really eat Aussie Salmom raw?!". Well I was pretty new to Australia, having arrived just a year ago and started fishing even more recently, but I trusted Tina and his bro. So? I wasn't deceived it was tasty and Sashimi Soy sauce and wasabi complement it very well. Aussie Salmon don't have good eating reputation but there are definitely some ways of preparing/cooking it to make it good enough, sashimi is one of the way. I heard that butter fried is another way and my auntie also stuffs them with veggies and tomato and oil and put them in the oven. If you guys know other great eay to cook them, please hit the comments.

Here are some more pictures:

To finish, Chung gave us two very nice Black Breams he caught on the night before we arrived. Back home, we fried them Vietnamese way and they were really tasty:

Every one was really happy with this trip, the title says best winter fishing trip of the year, but I must say it's the best fishing trip of the year, period.