Maldives! What an experience. Definitely an experience I will never forget & I'm already anxious for my visit next year! I was invited by Darren from Tacklesource earlier this year & I can't believe I'm already back to reality. 

First & foremost, Maldives is located roughly 700km's south west of Sri Lanka & is the smallest Asian country by both population & area. Maldives consists of 26 atolls which spread over an area of roughly 90,000 square kilometres. It is also the lowest country in the World with the highest point being only 2.3 meters.

The atolls stretch over a north south direction. Male (pronounced, Ma Ley), is the capital city with a population of over 100,000. Out of the 1,192 islets in Maldives, only 200 are inhabited.

We arrived in Male on the 6th & had a water taxi transport us to our fishing vessel which was called home for the week. We then motored 6-8 hours to our chosen fishing grounds.

The vessel, although being traditional, was comfortable offering the standard luxuries & 6 individual rooms with double bunks which also housed separate toilets & showers. There was a lounge suite & dining table to relax between fishing sessions (and TV for the girls to finish a season of Desperate House Wives whilst not sunbaking). On this trip we had, Fendi, Jarvis, Darren & Wendy, Sam & I and Marcus & Michelle. All the blokes were enthusiastic & experienced fishermen. The amount of gear we had amongst us was astonishing. We had kilos of reputable jigs, poppers & stickbaits & enough terminal tackle to repair a small car.

Each angler had medium to heavy popping outfits, light & medium jigging outfits & ultra light finesse combos. 

Every angler also had a jig rod from the Evergreen Poseidon range.

Now, I'm sure everyone is aware that fishing can be adversely affected by a number of variables, which can include, lost luggage, broken tackle and poor weather. This trip, we experienced the latter. For the first 3 days, we braved strong winds, but fortunately, minimal swell. The windy conditions didn't affect the fishing whatsoever, with surface lures resulting in good success.

Flat pond-like conditions greeted us towards the end of the week.

The surface fishing was the best I have ever experienced. This was purely due to the elevated casting platform we fished from. Watching a myriad of species follow poppers & stickbaits was phenomenal. Seeing red bass slowly follow our offerings & having a GT race from the reefs edge to smash our lures was mind blowing. The GT's total disregard towards any other specie was quite extraordinary. However, the mass of GT's proved tiring towards the end of the trip, particularly, when other species were wanted. The surface fishing required skill as much as patience at times. Poppers & stickbaits would be followed right to the boat without any form of aggression by the follower. Experimenting with twitch & retrieve patterns resulted in success most of the time. At one stage, I had Sam retrieve a stickbait for me & we all watched numerous red bass casually follow the lure to the boat.

The only real challenge on the GT scene was having to retrieve them from a moving boat. The reef's edge at some areas was beyond the eye could see, so we would motor at about 3 knots & continue casting in a procedural way to ensure safety of others whilst casting. Hooking GT's was easy, although, landing them was quite exhausting. As soon as they got behind the boat & into the current, it was like trying to lift a sea anchor out of a waterfall! The GT’s we encountered weren’t big, with most being between 10 & 20kg. We did raise 1 monster which refused a craftbait but we can also appreciate that this fishery would produce the bigger models more frequently if we travelled further afield to some really isolated areas. Though, at the moment, I am over GT’s.

On the jigging scene, jobfish & GT's were in large numbers (did I mention that I’m over GT’s), but we also landed a vast array of other species, some, I have never encountered before. Jigging the bottom water column produced the likely suspects of various groupers, cod, jobfish & emperors, whilst continuing jigging towards the upper water columns produced pelagic species. Hooking 2 fish on 1 jig wasn't uncommon.

On the light tackle shore based scene, emperors, blue fin trevs & cods were encountered. This form of fishing proved very relaxing & gave us a better perspective of the islands we could only look at whilst onboard.

Fishing at night or fishing whilst anchored for lunch was also successful & the girls enjoyed the thrill as much as the blokes did. Using light gear & light jigs was rewarding.

The experiences of this trip were plentiful, however, some outweighing others. You may recall my Christmas Island report where I hooked & failed to land a sailfish on jig. Well, I didn't have to wait long to accomplish this task. Yes, I did it, I hooked & landed a sailfish on an Evergreen Caprice Kid - I was over the moon.

Only on the last day, I raised the bar once again. I threw a stickbait into some fairly cruel looking shallow water & noticed a fish following the lure. I twitched & twitched until I hooked up, only to be snagged in the reef moments later. I decided to jump into the tender with the decky & motored back towards the snag. The water was deeper than I first imagined (about 5 meters). I made the decision to dive down as I could see the reflection of my stickbait.
My first attempt down was quite embarrassing - I got about half way down & thought.... man, this free diving stuff isn't easy. I took a huge breath & used the snagged line to pull myself down. I grabbed the stickbait & felt something kicking in the other direction. Being disorientated by the depth & super salty water, I surfaced with my stickbait & a MAORI WRASSE! What a fish! Again, I was over the moon.

Now, I always find that these sorts of trips are heavily influenced & made enjoyable simply by the people & charter you choose to fish with. Fishing with all these people, I now call friends, really made the trip enjoyable! It's amazing how many people out there share the same passion & turn out to be some of your best mates.

The deck hands & chef were extremely helpful 110% of the time. On the second last night, the boat crew created a whale shark in the sand & used it as a table to present a feast to us. Oh, and I must also point out, the food we ate was sensational!

Well, enough with the story telling, I'm sure some photos below will paint a much better picture!

Daz

P.s. Disregard the banana tale.