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Come to Papua

It's a sad but true fact that there are very few real frontiers left in the sportsfishing world. While there are certainly still some very remote fishing destinations, many have been overfished, and the thought of fish that have rarely, if ever, seen a lure is but a dream.

However, we have just discovered a brand new sportsfishing destination that is indeed a fishing frontier; and while it is remote, it is also accessible.

I'm talking about Lindenhafen Fishing Resort, located on the south coast of west New Britain in Papua New Guinea.

For some reason there is a perception that PNG is not a safe place to holiday. While the country has had some political unrest in the past, this perception could not be further from the truth. Like any country, there are small pockets where trouble lies; but you just stay clear of these areas.

This was my third trip to PNG, and I have never received anything but outstanding hospitality by friendly people with big smiles that are always happy to give you a wave.

Lindenhafen is located right on the banks of a natural harbour formed by pristine tropical islands and a fringing reef. Owned by John and Sharyn Scallan, the 800-hectare property was once a copra plantation; but now its sole purpose is to provide an amazing fishing experience for its visitors.

If I were to open a fishing resort, I'd definitely look for a location that offers a diverse range of fishing opportunities as well as a large variety of target species. This is obviously what John had in mind, and Lindenhafen is the perfect site.

CLOSE QUARTERS
What is so amazing about Lindenhafen is its proximity to various fishing locations. For example, there are no less than three rivers, miles of reef edge and a seamount all within a 15-minute boat ride of the resort.

It's hard to believe, but you can quite literally be up a creek catching black bass and 15 minutes later be trolling a seamount for marlin or dogtooth tuna. It's amazing how much fishing you can cram into a day when everything is so close.

Speaking of black bass, while it is not a bluewater species, it is one fish I have had on my personal hit list for some time - and PNG is the only place in the world where you'll find them. For those anglers who aren't familiar with the black bass, they are considered by many as one of the toughest fish to land.

Part of the Lutjanidae family, black bass are creek and river dwellers that like to fight dirty. They grow in excess of 50lb and have been described by many as mangrove jack (mangrove snapper for our US readers) on steroids.

Heavy-duty baitcasters with 50lb braid and locked-up drags are the weapon of choice for black bass. If you can't drag a bass out of its lair within the first couple of seconds, the result is usually a bit of loose line blowing in the breeze off the end of your rod tip. Anyhow, you get the idea - they are very tough and hard to catch.

The other good news about Lindenhafen is that you can get there from the east coast of Australia in a day. Joining me on this trip was BlueWater contributor Peter Pakula. Well known for his skirted trolling lures, Peter needs no introduction within these pages.

COME FLY WITH ME
We took an Air Niugini Boeing 737 from Brisbane to Port Moresby, which took just three hours. From Moresby it was a tight connection onto an F28 for a 45-minute flight to Kimbe, which is located on the northern side of New Britain.

From Kimbe you can take a 30-minute flight directly to Lindenhafen in a Bell Longranger chopper with Heli Niugini, or Airlink provides an Islander light-plane service to Gasmata, which is about a 20-minute boat ride from the resort.

Rather than fly straight in to Lindenhafen, we decided to spend a night at Walindi Resort near Kimbe - a popular dive resort that Lindenhafen plans to use when overnight transfers are required.

It's a stylish retreat in another spectacular PNG location. The bungalows are sprawled throughout the tropical gardens, and breaking up the travel was probably a smart thing to do. It also gave us an early start for our final leg to Lindenhafen.

The next morning we woke bright eyed and bushy tailed, and keen to get to Lindenhafen and start fishing. Plan A was to catch a chopper straight to Lindenhafen, but the weather over the range that divides north and south New Britain didn't look favourable for a helicopter trip.
Even so, in typical PNG style, our nonchalant pilot Bill said "Let's have a go anyway". He limped towards the chopper as we loaded our bags, but I wasn't even going to ask how he got his limp.

We were soon in the air and on our way to Lindenhafen. The view from the chopper was spectacular, and it was heartening the see thick jungle that is exactly as it was 1000 years ago. We dodged our way around a few clouds, but we just couldn't cut over the highest peaks. It was decided that the safest option was to return to Kimbe. It was disappointing, but by the same token I think Bill made a wise decision.

ET GOIN' HOME
Due to depart Lindenhafen at the same time as our arrival was Andrew Ettingshausen and the crew from Channel Nine's Escape with ET television program. They'd just been filming at Lindenhafen for an upcoming show.

ET was due to land at Hoskins Airport in Kimbe in an Islander, so we made plans to take the same plane back to Gasmata where the rest of ET's crew would be waiting.

The airstrip at Gasmata is actually an old strip that was occupied by the Japanese during World War II. As you come in to land on this grass airstrip and see the scattered remains of war relics, you can't help but imagine what was going on right on that spot 60-odd years ago. Sends shivers down your spine, actually.

We were greeted at Gasmata by John and the smiling faces of the local villagers. We then jumped aboard the longboats for a picturesque 20-minute boat ride up an inland waterway to Lindenhafen.

Anchored off Lindenhafen was Tsunami, a 46ft Southern Cross owned by PNG-based businessman and keen gamefisher Keith Kingston. Keith kindly arranged to have Tsunami brought over from Lae for our trip, and will be making the boat available to Lindenhafen for future bookings.

The sparkling white hull of Tsunami looked spectacular against the green jungle background and we couldn't wait to get aboard and go fishing. Sharyn had prepared a hearty brunch for our arrival, so once we satisfied our stomachs we made a game plan and hit the water.

TSUNAMI IN A TEACUP
We decided to spend the first afternoon aboard Tsunami concentrating our efforts on the seamount; which, as mentioned, is just 2nm from the resort.

The crew of the Tsunami - Capt Rob McCulloch, Damien Colette and Jerry Wanu - had been fishing the seamount extensively for the last week, so the place was pretty well wired prior to our arrival. They had encountered big wahoo, Spanish mackerel, trevally and, of course, dogtooth tuna.

One doggie that got sharked before they could get it to the boat was an absolute monster. Just the remains of the head weighed 17kg. Imagine what the whole fish weighed!

Like most seamounts, it was alive with bait and birds upon our arrival. A couple of small lures were despatched, and we soon had a pair of school yellowfin tuna at the back of the boat. These 3kg fish are marlin candy, so we sent one back out as a livebait and iced down the other for sashimi.

Surprisingly, we managed to slow troll around the birds and bait for a good hour without a bite. It was hard to believe that a live yellowfin could last so long. Rob trundled a little closer to the seamount, but it may have been a little too close. One quick bounce of the rod tip and our livie was gone.

The dacron bridle had been cut clean so our little 'fin had just become dinner for something with sharp teeth.

We decided to put a swimming rainbow runner on the downrigger and see if we couldn't drag out one of those XOS doggies. Again we were surprised at how long the runner lasted - particularly with the marks we were getting on the sounder.

We got quite a surprise during one of the routine checks of the downrigger to make sure we still had a bait. I'd just released the bait from the downrigger and was hand-lining the last few feet when it got ripped from my hand. I called John to free-spool, which he did; but the fish didn't return for a second bite.

Upon inspection, we noticed the rainbow runner was totally crushed with no teeth marks, so I have no doubt it was a marlin.

It's interesting to note that in exactly the same spot back in April 2004, the Lae-based boat Libertine was fishing its way back from the PNG National Titles in Rabaul when it captured a 108kg black marlin. Even more interesting, however, was the fact that the marlin had been tagged off Townsville, Australia way back in 1996 by Bill Tapp aboard Assegai.

The fish was estimated at 25kg at the first time of capture, had travelled 721nm and spent 2766 days at liberty.

DREAM BOAT
Tsunami is an absolute pleasure to fish from. Everything is in the right place, and it made the days at sea so much more enjoyable.

Rob had the Furuno electronics package down pat too. He was using the radar to locate flocks of birds and the sonar to work the edges of the reef, as well as navigate our way through the reef passages after dark. It really is top quality gear.

After a big feed and a few drinks back at Lindenhafen, we called it an early night in anticipation of a big one the following day. The resort currently has 10 bungalows all with their own ensuites. As we were only the second group to stay at the resort, there was still a fair bit of work in progress. Hot water and lighting in the ensuites were two inclusions that will be fitted soon.

The season at Lindenhafen runs from November to April, when the winds are generally from the north and blowing offshore. We were there at the start of November and the wind was still blowing a bit from the south, although not ferociously. However, there was still a little bit of swell hitting the beaches, which made accessing the creeks a little interesting.

As the week progressed we formed a pattern. We'd fish the creeks in the morning and then board Tsunami for an afternoon of gamefishing with lunch at the resort in between. It seemed to work well, and getting out of the heat in the middle of the day gave us a chance to recharge our batteries.

RIVERS BY DAY
On our second day at Lindenhafen, we headed east after breakfast in the longboats to try our luck on the bass. The closest river to Lindenhafen is the Amgen, but we couldn't cross the bar because of the swell. It also looked very dirty from the rain we'd had the night before.

The next river just a few miles further east is the LuLu, which has a more protected entrance and didn't appear to be affected by freshwater runoff as much as the Amgen. The mouth of the LuLu looked very fishy, and it took a whole two casts before I got nailed. I was using one of Halco's new King Brown Laser Pros, but unfortunately I pulled the hooks before I got a look at the fish.

We decided to work our way upstream casting at snags as we went. Peter dragged out three nice mangrove jacks in three casts off the first snag pile we hit. Not a bad start at all.

A slow troll between snag piles resulted in the first black bass of the trip for Peter. Not a huge fish, but a bass nonetheless; and considerably bigger than the one and only bass he'd caught on a previous trip to PNG.

Peter was using diving minnows, while I was persevering with surface poppers hoping for that unforgettable surface explosion. At the next snag pile I had a huge jack come up and inspect my popper, but it didn't bite. Meanwhile, Pete dragged out another nice black bass on the minnows.

We trolled further upstream in the hope of catching a spot-tail bass, which is another Lutjanidae only found in PNG that grows just as big as the black bass and pulls nearly as hard.

I finally caught a couple of jacks, and Pete got a jungle perch; but although we could see the spot-tails swimming around the snags in the crystal-clear water, we couldn't get them to bite.

There was just enough time for a few more casts around the river mouth before we headed back to the resort for lunch, and it was here that I had my first encounter with a big bad black bass. The strike nearly ripped the rod from my hands and I could do nothing but hold on as line ripped from my reel under an incredible load - like I was in freespool.

It was all over in seconds, and there I was; standing forlornly with a bit of limp line blowing in the breeze. I had never felt such power in such a short burst from any fish; and while I love my marlin fishing, I had a whole new respect for these fish from the brown water.

STICK WITH WHAT YOU KNOW
After lunch we were on more familiar territory, trolling the turquoise reef edges for mackerel and chucking poppers at GTs.
We had a fun little session boating a bunch of Spaniards and a couple of solid GTs, including a healthy 12kg model that Damien nailed on one of the baitcasters we were using in the creek and one of Halco's new Roosta poppers.

The baitcaster rods were actually the resort rods, and they had amazing power. They were the new Shimano Raider Barra Magnum Plus matched to Calcutta TE400 reels and 50lb braid. They didn't look like particularly strong rods, but they had incredible strength and were a pleasure to cast.

It was back out to the seamount for another late-afternoon session, and again it was fairly quiet. We couldn't put our finger on it but something wasn't quite right with the offshore fishing. Moon, tides, coral spawning; who knows? The only bite we got from a doggie was on the downrigger ball. Yeah, these dogtooth tuna are real smart.

The next day we ran west for over an hour to fish a big river called the Johanna. We stopped at a local village at the mouth of the river to let them know we would be fishing there. John gets permission from all the traditional owners to fish each river and actually pays them 30 kina ($15) per person per day they fish. Pretty good earner for the locals, really.

On one of my first casts in the Johanna I got a little close to the bank and got a leaf on my lure. I was ripping the popper back to the boat to get the leaf off when this enormous bass came up swirled just behind the lure but missed the hooks. Argh!

Once again, Peter kicked my arse in the river. He got two real nice bass - one close to 20lb - as well as a couple of GTs over 30lb. Not bad fish for a creek using baitcasters.

The trend continued through the week - jacks and the odd bass up the creeks in the morning, and Spaniards, GTs, tuna and so on offshore in the afternoons. We did get pack-attacked by a bunch of small sailfish one afternoon, but we only managed to hook one - and that jumped off fairly smartly.

The billfishing was disappointing, but maybe we were just there at the wrong time. I'm sure once John gets to spend a whole season at the resort he'll get a much better idea of what bites - and when.

LAST CHANCES
By the last day I still hadn't caught my black bass even though I had been bricked by a few. It was a goal I really wanted to fulfil, so we spent most of the last day in the creeks.

Mangrove jack after mangrove jack nailed my lures, but the bass weren't playing the game.

With just a couple of hours of light left, I didn't like my chances, but decided to make one last dash back to the LuLu where I had been bricked by the big bass on day one. I was a little excited when I made my first cast to the exact spot where I had been bricked days earlier and got a backlash.My popper was just floating down the river as I removed the backlash from the reel when BOOF! There was a massive explosion on my lure, but it failed to hook-up.

I hooked two nice spot-tail bass, but both of them spat the lure right beside the boat. I was using barbless hooks on my popper, but after that I decided to go back to barbs. The light was starting to fade when I got a massive strike on the popper. I was sure it was a bass but it was another big mangrove jack.

Just when I had lost hope of catching a bass, BANG! - I'm on again. And as the net slid under the fish, I screamed with elation. I'd finally caught a black bass!

It was no monster, but I was happy just to be able to cross another species off the wish list. Looks like I'll have to go back for the spot-tail, though.

GIMME CONSOLATION
While the fishing at Lindenhafen wasn't the best I've had, when you come to a place like this the fish are a bonus. It's amazing to fish a location that's had very little impact from humankind.

John has some big plans for Lindenhafen. He has already bought a mothership so he can do extended trips to rivers further from the resort, and he also plans to upgrade his longboats and install four-stroke outboards.

The weather was good enough for us to take the chopper over the range on the way out, and it was quite an experience. The colour changes from deep blue sea to white sandy beaches, then to lush green forest in a matter of metres. It's an incredible sight from the air, and an experience worth every cent.

John and Sharyn were the perfect hosts, and I wouldn't hesitate recommending Lindenhafen to anyone looking for an adventure fishing holiday. In fact, BlueWater is going to conduct a Readers' Trip there in February 2006 - so if you're interested, speak up.

And if you can't wait that long, contact Angling Adventures for bookings.

It's a sad but true fact that there are very few real frontiers left in the sportsfishing world. While there are certainly still some very remote fishing destinations, many have been overfished, and the thought of fish that have rarely, if ever, seen a lure is but a dream.

However, we have just discovered a brand new sportsfishing destination that is indeed a fishing frontier; and while it is remote, it is also accessible.

I'm talking about Lindenhafen Fishing Resort, located on the south coast of west New Britain in Papua New Guinea.

This was my third trip to PNG, and I have never received anything but outstanding hospitality by friendly people with big smiles that are always happy to give you a wave.

Speaking of black bass, while it is not a bluewater species, it is one fish I have had on my personal hit list for some time - and PNG is the only place in the world where you'll find them. For those anglers who aren't familiar with the black bass,
they are considered by many as one of the toughest fish to land.

Rather than fly straight in to Lindenhafen, we decided to spend a night at Walindi Resort near Kimbe - a popular dive resort that Lindenhafen plans to use when overnight transfers are required.

Even so, in typical PNG style, our nonchalant pilot Bill said "Let's have a go anyway". He limped towards the chopper as we loaded our bags, but I wasn't even going to ask how he got his limp.