Bear with me, I'm a newbie... lots of questions

[gstahl]

Hi, I recently joined this forum in order to get some ideas, pointers and suggestions from reading the posts. I have only been offshore fishing once in Hawaii on a charter and had one hellva great time catching mahi mahi, YFT, etc. I'm close to retirement and will be moving to the Coral Coast, Fiji in 2017, to a small farm that I bought on the coast. Since the prices and logistics of getting fishing equipment in Fiji will be very difficult, I'm looking to purchase fishing equipment here in the USA (Boston area) and taking it with me on my yearly trips to Fiji and leaving it there before I retire and move there for good. Of course, Fiji has wahoo, GT, Mahi, marlin, yft, dogtooth, etc. and I've seen many of these species just a few yards off the reef while SCUBA and snorkelling (as well as many lobsters), just 200 meters from where my home will be located.

What I'd like to do is get an idea of what gear I need to get, as this is all new to me. I can foresee responses to me such as "go on a charter in the area and see what is used locally". Very obvious to me is that I'll need several types of rods and likely more limited kinds of reels. I will have a boat, but can also 'surf fish' from my private reef too. I wanted to run by the experts here what sort of 'toys', should I think about. I'll be heading to Fiji in August for a short trip to talk to the builder, plant my coconut grove and well... relax.

I really appreciate the 'wide breath' of expertise from all over the world on this site. GREAT SITE!! Greg

[TILEFEVER]

Take me as a guest and each time I come I'll leave you some nice two piece rods for casting to heavy tuna, GT etc. I'll also leave behind some lures, leader line, hooks, etc

[Locke N Load]

Woah! Jealous. Can I come visit?

Lots of much more experienced anglers than me can give input on gear.

[cabosandinh]

If I were to live on the Coral Coast and fish, I would have a variety as shown below

reels
Alutecnos 8V, 12C, 12, 50W
Shimano Torsa 16, 20
Shimano Tiagra 50W
Shimano Stella 8000, 10000

rods
Jigging Master or Black Hole or OTI 300, 350gr jigging rods and 8ft popping rods

St Croix Surf Legend, 9ft

Seeker, G Loomis, Cape Fear , BillyStix , Cal Star roller rods
There are several rod builders here that can custom wrap some beautiful rods for you
if you prefer to go Customized route (Richie, JPR, Sliverking79 etc ... )

[bingfish]

I agree with San.

I would have 3-4 150-350 jigging setups for reef fishing that double for heavier open water stuff.

Small Avet SX/Canyon 15/Shimano Trinidad 14-16N
Medium 3/0 Size narrow reels Daiwa Saltiga 30T/Accurate 400N
Spin - Saragosa 6k-10k, Saltist 4000-5000 or their higher priced brothers

For offshore, I'd do the heavier jigging and popping gear
Medium 3/0 Size narrow. 30T again, Accurate 500N and NN
Heavy - 4/0 Size Narrow Trinidad 40N, Accurate 600NN, 665NN
Spin - Saragosa 10k, 18k, Saltist 5000, 6500 or their higher priced brothers
Popping rods with these same spinners. 30/40, 40/60, and 60/80 sizes

Trolling - 30s and 50s with spectra for most, 50w if you plan on marlin. 30w and 50w setups might be the safest plan.

If you have surf, that's a whole extra thing. St Croix and Lami are probably most common. Your regular spinners will be fine, but there's a lot of surf-specific spinners out there. I love my Daiwa emcast. For conventional surf, look at Break-Away rods and Daiwa Sealine X SHA in 20 and 30 size. Grandwave is also popular, but they don't make them anymore.

This post could have been 2 pages long and is just scraping the surface. This would be a very fun project to do. I would plan it all out ahead of time and buy slowly and carefully. Get 1-2 of each outfit so that you can make adjustments after using it once or twice.

[Whalebreath]

Unless you're planning to head down Kadavu way you'll be targeting smaller models of fish all around so I wouldn't bother with heavier gear.