Niue Paul Pasisi paulpasisicharters@gmail.com

As our main fishing season looms (June to November), the weather is finally settling and things are starting to heat up! We’ve had an unusually long hot and wet summer this year but have fortunately been spared from any serious cyclone activity.

The wahoo are arriving again. While most have been little ones in the 7-10kg range, there have been a few decent 20kg-plus fish in the mix and we expect the big boys to arrive any time. Mahimahi are starting to show

up as well, although having lost several of our FADs it remains to be seen how their numbers will hold this year. We hope the Fisheries Department will be able to deploy some replacement FADs soon. Some nice yellowfin tuna are being taken on the one remaining offshore FAD and when trolling at first light or around bigger workups out wide. This action looks like it may continue for a while provided the baitfish numbers remain steady.

To complete the species diversity, we have also had a few small runs of sailfish and marlin. The sails have typically been averaging 30-40kg and the marlin 30-120kg. Interestingly, I caught my smallest marlin ever just recently – weighing only a tad over 35kg. Unfortunately, we were unable to revive it for release but it did provide some excellent-quality eating for many.