“Where do I start when talking about my favourite offshore fishing spot, the Solomon Islands?” is the question posed by regular visitor Stu Cawker.
I have been heading to this glorious undeveloped Pacific backwater for well over 25 years now and have come to know my preferred patch like the back of my hand. And by patch, I mean the Vonavona Lagoon and its home base for things fishy, Zipolo Habu Resort – the only dedicated fishing resort in the Western Province (or indeed in all) of the Solomon Islands.
The best place to start would be letting you know how to get there. This begins with a 3.5-hour flight from Auckland to Brisbane, followed by the Solomons connection – a three-hour flight to the capital Honiara. From there, a quick shuttle ride across to the domestic terminal will get you onto the hour-long domestic flight northwest to Munda, the nearest airport and town to Lola Island and the resort. After you’re picked up from the airport, you can then head off across the lagoon in one of the resort’s boats for the 20-minute lagoon cruise to your destination. It sounds a little complicated, but the effort is worth it!
A Small 40ha jungle-clad sand and coral island in the magnificent Vonavona Lagoon is home to only the resort and its few staff. There are eight bungalows, including four new air-conditioned beachfront chalets that each have a million-dollar view across the lagoon towards the massive ‘sleeping maiden’ Kolombangara, a magnificent volcanic caldera rising in the misty distance. It’s an inspirational view.
Hand-feeding the local shark population keeps lodge guests entertained
The main attraction for me is the fishing. I have yet to find a Pacific location that has a better range of angling opportunities in one area. The diversity of habitats offer an amazing range of fishing experiences.
Within half an hour of the resort you can go from pristine tropical rainforest rivers hunting for spot-tail bass and jungle perch, to stalking mangrove jacks and estuary cods in crocodile haunted mangrove inlets, to cruising across lagoons shaded in every imaginable green and blue for inner reef and lagoon predators like trevally, Spanish mackerel and…. the range of target species is too huge to even start listing. All of the above can be fished for with a good 6-8kg spin set.
From here, if you want to start beefing up your outfits to 15 to 24kg casting tackle, you can head to the outer reef edge where the ‘poppering’ gets even hotter. Giant trevally are the premier targets but other tropical bruisers like red bass, coral trout, and everything else with fins will chew a popper or stickbait out there.
This is where the Solomons truly come into their own, as the diversity of species there is just astounding. I’ve fished numerous tropical haunts, and normally you will get giant trevally and the odd bluefin trevally poppering. Here though, you truly never know just what is going to come roaring out from the shallow coral reef to hide your lure in a foam of exploding white water.
The inland waterways provide plenty of challenges for anglers, especially those fishing light tackle
After an hour or two of poppering, if your arm is getting a little stiff for the action, you can put the poppers away, chuck out a lure spread and troll. Close to the reef edges, you will find your inshore pelagic predators: wahoo, Spanish mackerel, tropical barracudas, and often sailfish. This can all happen within a few hundred metres of the shorelines. A decent 15kg trolling set with a mix of minnow lures and smallish skirts are good here.
From here on out, you can head into the deep blue water for the string of deepwater rafts (or FADs) offshore. You will now be hunting for yellowfin tuna, wahoo, mahimahi and marlin, all of which seem to ceaselessly circle these deepwater oases of fish life. These start just a twenty-minute run out from the resort.
There is a massive range of fishing options, and more to the point, the fishing takes place in uniformly calm, entirely beautiful conditions! Yes, no ceaseless 30kn NE trade winds here – every day is entirely “fishable”. Should a breeze be making offshore fishing After an hour or two of poppering, if your arm is getting a little stiff for the action, you can put the poppers away, chuck out a lure spread and troll. Close to the reef edges, you will find your inshore pelagic predators: wahoo, Spanish mackerel, tropical barracudas, and often sailfish. This can all happen within a few hundred metres of the shorelines. A decent 15kg trolling set with a mix of minnow lures and smallish skirts are good here.
From here on out, you can head into the deep blue water for the string of deepwater rafts (or FADs) offshore. You will now be hunting for yellowfin tuna, wahoo, mahimahi and marlin, all of which seem to ceaselessly circle these deepwater oases of fish life. These start just a twenty-minute run out from the resort.
There is a massive range of fishing options, and more to the point, the fishing takes place in uniformly calm, entirely beautiful conditions! Yes, no ceaseless 30kn NE trade winds here – every day is entirely “fishable”. Should a breeze be making offshore fishing a bit lumpy, then you have miles upon miles of sheltered lagoon waters to fish, and all in a tropical setting that can only be described as paradisical.
There is also far more to do than just the fishing. The snorkelling on the reefs here, and the diving for those keen on bubble blowing, are just incredible. As a bonus, 70 years or so ago the Imperial Japanese Navy added a huge amount of infrastructure in the local waters as a great dive attraction – albeit somewhat unwillingly!
A great casting platform
Yes, the Solomon Islands was one of the major battlegrounds of World War Two. The resort has a guided tour of the local battle sites, wrecked tanks, downed aircraft, and even an abandoned underground Japanese field hospital. There are sunken Japanese ships, and downed Japanese and American aircraft both on land and in the sea – one US Hellcat fighter is in only 20ft or so of water, so is easily explored while snorkelling. For history buffs, this is exactly the place where President J.F. Kennedy had his famous torpedo boat PT109 sunk during the battles in this area.
The best feature of Zipolo Habu for a Kiwi fisherman spending their time here is the resort’s access to the best local fishing guides. They have a selection of well-trained guides who really know their home patch. The Zipolo Habu also has the best fishing boat in the Solomon Islands, an 8m alloy boat named Ramonalola. It was built by Allenco Marine in Matamata to be perfectly suited to the fishing up there.
It has a huge raised fore deck for popper casting, twin outboards for peace of mind, and a canopy to give full protection from the frequent vertical rivers they laughingly describe as ‘rain’. If not using Ramonalola, the resort has other, smaller, island-style longboats fitted out for fishing as well,’ which are especially useful for going up the jungle rivers or among the mangrove backwaters. There certainly is more to see in the Solomons than Zipolo Habu and the Munda area. An hour or so by boat from the resort you have the local provincial capital, Gizo, which also has a small selection of nice watering holes and accommodation options. Sanbis Resort and Fatboys are two of the better options for travellers to visit. Air services to the area are as good as it gets in the Solomons. Munda Airport itself has been rebuilt to an international standard recently thanks to our NZ tax dollar.
What gear would I suggest you take? Zipolo Habu has a good range of gear on hand for their customers to use, but I have found the keener anglers like to take their own tackle. I would recommend taking a medium sized trolling set – something in the 15-24kg range, and preferably one that can double for bottom fishing duty in 300+ deep waters; a decent 15/24kg popper casting set up; a medium 6-8kg spin outfit; and finally, a light 3-4kg casting set. The resort has the heavier trolling gear on hand. Lures to take? Again, the resort has a good range of this stuff; however, I would suggest taking a decent selection of poppers and stickbaits – some smaller 75mm to 100mm bibbed minnows for flicking on lighter line around the various reef bommies, and a small selection of 50mm or so lures for mangrove jacks and spot tail bass up the rivers. Zipolo Habu does have the only tackle shop in the western province on-site with all the gear best suited to the area.
So, if you feel like shooting off to a tropical retreat far from the madding crowd (there are absolutely no non-fishing jet skis) and expanding your fishing experiences so far beyond anything we can find here in New Zealand, I cannot recommend the Solomon Islands highly enough.
Stu Cawker (aka Captain Asparagus)