We had booked the trip to Maldives 1 year before, so expectations were
high! Four Danish guys with the hopes of catching plenty of GT’s, also a couple
of big ones and then a lot of light tackle fun on our PE 4-5 gear. We also
brought our jigging gear despite the reports that Maldives isn’t a jigging
destination, more a popping destination, but never the less, we brought some
jigging-gear with us
Jacob Rønnow, Nikolaj Bielecki, my father and me packed our things and escaped the cold
Danish weather and travelled to Dubai and then further on to Male Friday 14th
of November. When arrived, we were greeted by Mohamed, captain of Magic Life.
Then we took the 2½-3 hour boatride to our base the following 8 days in
Lhaviyani. The accommodation was simple but clean and the island was…. Lets
say… very local…. :) Actually we didn’t see any tourists until we came back to the
airport.
After unpacking, we went down to the beach – but actually It wasn’t easy
to find a spot that looked like a beach. Luckily the Island wasn’t bigger than
it was manageable to walk around it within 30 minutes, so we found a sandy
beach, with a coral reef and a drop-off a little further out. But the beach was
filled with garbage, and most of it actually used diapers… Anyway besides that, the snorkeling was really good, and we saw Bluefin trevally, Doggie, groupers, parrotfish and also a dragonfish :)
Our trip was right in the short local monsoon-period (which we didn’t know when we
booked the tickets;-)) so we had 3½ day with sunshine and 3½ days with heavy rain,
so we had the chance to see Maldives at its best, and at its worst. None of us,
had never experienced rain before as this, literally sea and sky were one and
the visibility turning into almost zero. Amazing.
Overall we caught 57 GT’s, with 2 big ones amongst them – 118 cm
(weighed at between 29-31 kg on a Salter Samson Scale Weight) and another
biggie at 125 cm. Both of them hit a Heru Skipjack.
Almost all of the geets were in the class of 60-90 cm, so there is no
need to bring in the ultra heavy gear. PE 5-6 is suitable, but never the less
we got reefed a couple of times – typically on lighter PE3-4 gear, when a +100
cm fish took the lure, and went heading for the reef.
To give an example, I caught 22 GT’s on the trip (6½ days of fishing),
with the biggest measuring 89 cm, and lost a couple of fish in the range of 100
cm, but didn’t have contact with something bigger than this. And it wasn’t
because I was fishing smaller lures. 90% of the time, I was fishing Skipjack
90/120 g or Gamma 160H with PE5-6 gear.
But we had some world class fishing, with a lot of different fish - and lots of action, so we were extremely pleased with the trip!
Killer-lures on this trip were Skipjack 90/120/150 g, Carpenter Gamma
160H and for the smaller fish: Orion Mister Joe, Maria Loaded, Orion Bigfoot
especially in pink.
We had a lot of mixed bag as well, including fish as Red Snapper, Green
Jobfish, Sweet lip, Bluefin Trevally, Garfish and Groupers. We also had a big
shark and a big Wahoo chasing our stickbaits.
In regards to the jigging, then it was pretty slow, but in the Male area
the skipper showed us a drop-off, were we found some great action with 3
dogtooth tunas (puppies though (6-8 kg)) and some almacos/amberjacks in the
same range. On jigging we caught, Doggie, Almaco, Coral Trout, Potato Grouper,
“Tomato” Grouper, White spotted Grouper, Ruby. Twice we were bitten off by
sharks, taking our fish, one time half of a Bluefin Trevally appeared, and
second time, only the head of a Almaco showed up….
Rods:
Carpenter Coral Viper CV79/40, Endless Passion EP86/40, Blue Chaser BLC83/40R
Power Max, Westin Popping 100-180 g, Salty Water Tackle El Maestro 710MH, Smith
KGS, Westin Dynamic 8,6. 40-130 g
The Salty Water Tackle El Maestro seemed to be a perfect rod for this
kind of fishing paired with a Stella 8000/10000. Suitable for poppers and
sticks in the range of 60-120 g.
Reels:
Stellas: 20.000, 18.000,14.000, 10.000, 8.000, 6.000, 4.000.
Lures:
Heru Cubera 125, Heru Skipjack 150/120/90, Sebile Splasher 190,
Carpenter Gamm 160H, Maria Loaded, Orion Bigfoot, Orion Mister Joe, Buster
Jerk.
No doubt, pink colours had an explosive effect on especially lighter
game.
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| mmuuaahh |
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| Nice Snapper |
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| Mr. Joe coloured pink with nail-.polish |
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| Fish of the trip - 125 cm GT |
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| Enjoying life |
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| Another GT |
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| Bluefin Trevally |
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| Almaco on jigging |
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| Doggie (puppie) and Coral Trout |
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| Sharks took my BF Trevally and Nikolaj with a nice Grouper |
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| Nikolaj with 118 cm of power - weighed at 29-31 kg on the boat in a sling |
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| Another special looking grouper |
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| Rønnow with nice snapper |
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| Double hook-up! |
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| El Maestro taking a nice bend |
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| Nice size Jobfish that took a Skipjack |
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| Nikolaj goes aquarium |
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| Dad also goes aquarium |
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| Monster garfish |
