Papua New Guinea/ Rock Expeditions

Had the opportunity to fish with Luke Wyrsta of Rock Expeditions along with friends Neil Waddall of New Zealand and Peter Furber of South Africa.  We fished for over 8 days in the middle of February.  Our main base was Bushy/Mwanewa Island out in the Solomon Sea and later in the stay we motored about 4 hours further south to Panarairai.  The majority of destinations have never seen a lure before.  We targeted GT ( Giant Trevally) using x-large poppers and stickbaits.  The GT fishing was good with approximately 80 lbs being the largest. 
Numerous blue trevally, a few bigeye trevally, a few dogtooth tuna, lots of Bohar Snapper, lots of coral trout, Spanish Mackerel, 2 Napolean Wrasse, a few rainbow runners, a few barracuda, a footballer trout, lots of green jobfish, a few coronation trout/ cresent tail trout/ scarlet sea perch, rock cods and skipjack tuna and a shark was landed during the week.  Peter Furber landed the fish of his dreams, a beautiful Napoleon Wrasse weighing around 85 lbs.  Peter also had a huge doggie get devoured by a shark at the boat and another giant doggie which he fought over an hour before his line gave away. 
The Louisiade Archipelago holds thousands of reefs loaded with fish.  The trip is extremely remote and more or less camping out which was to my delight.  We stayed in a native hut on Bushy sleeping on mats in mosquito netting.  On Panarairai were put a tarp over some trees and slept on the mats.  No cold drinks here!
We drank room temperature bottled water, soda, and beer.  Meals consisted of fish, bananas, pineapples, rice, and ramen noodles. 

Sleeping " under the stars" was a huge determining factor when I booked this trip.  Luke does everything in his power to insure a safe trip.  He is the most passionate angler I have shared a boat with and his knowledge about GT is second to none!  This trip was a dream come true to me and cannot wait to head back next February!

Temple Forks Outfitters TFD Big Fish Spinning Rods

Before my recent trip to Papua New Guinea for Giant Trevally, I talked to friend and IGFA Hall of Fame member, Larry Dahlberg.  Larry made a phone call on my behalf to Jim Shulin of TFO.  Jim provided me with a few TFD Big Fish Spinning Rod blanks in models 86P3 and 86P2.  I then sent to blanks to Thorne Brothers in Minnesota to have master rod builder, Lonnie, build the rods to my specifications.  I took the P3 model to PNG as a tad stronger than the P2.  The rods turned out great.  Was trying to see if a big GT would break the rod.  I was able to handle GTs up to approximately 80 lbs on these blanks.

So in my opinion they can handle practically every fish which swims as the GT are extremely powerful and put a hurt on many rods!  As of today, TFO is not selling the spinning rod models, just the baitcasting rods.  However, am sure you can get in touch with either Larry on his website www.huntforbigfish.com or contact Jim Shulin at TFO about getting some blanks. You can then contact a master rod builder such as Lonnie at www.thornebrothers.com.   Next year I hope to put a 100 lbs GT on the end of these rods!