One Of The Best Fishing Trips Ever

I just got back from one of the best fishing trips of my life. I have to classify it as “one of the best fishing trips” because it seems like all the fishing trips are just outstanding. I had an idea of what to expect on this cultural fishing trip as I had been on one similar to it. However, I would like to take the time here to recreate the experience for all those who would rather read about fishing than fish. And those of you who just get real excited about it, check out the fishing tour on www.reservemaldives.com and come fish with me.

I had a tourist come that wanted to experience the life of a real and uncommercialized fisherman. He and I took a sea plane to a nearby resort. I had scheduled our fishing boat to pick us up from the resort at exactly 7:20 AM. He was right onetime and we were eager to fish, so I requested that we begin immediately. Our captain spoke little English and I only understand a little Dhivehi and speak even less. However, as the week grew longer, my Dhivehi got much better and I believe his English was better too. So we fished until 9:30 AM and headed to the island to eat breakfast. While we were there, we dropped our bags in our room and said hello to the family that was allowing us to stay in their home. After some breakfast, we headed back out for middle of the day fishing. It was really hot and lots of sun. The fishermen couldn’t make the fish bite. We caught a few tuna, but it wasn’t until about 4:00 PM that the fun really began.

There were 5 of us aboard and each of us held our own line. However, there were three additional lines that were tied to the boat and were the responsibility of whoever was closest. So that is a total of 8 lines. Five of the lines were for tuna, two of the lines were for wahoo or mahi mahi and one line was for the “big one.” We didn’t really care what kind of “big one” we might catch, as long as he came. Well let me tell you, he did. We took one of the smaller tuna (maybe 15 inches) and ran the hook through his upper lip. The hook was tied to a large yellow jug with out about 100 ft of heavy line. We tossed the jug out into the water and kept pulling the other lines. All the while, we were watching to see if the yellow jug moved. Well it did. We moved the boat back to collect the jug and began pulling the line in by hand. We were surprised to find a white tip reef shark on the other end. So the shark created a little excitement and we were ready to keep fishing. The captain put a large white lure on the end of a line that was also tied to large jug. About 20 minutes after the shark, we got a hit on the big line. The captain had the line tied off to the boat with a small piece of plastic. When the sailfish hit the line, it broke the plastic tie and the jug went in the water. Little did we know, but this was the plan. This gave us a chance to pull the other lines in and allow the sailfish to tire himself before the fight began. I guess the pictures tell the best story, so I uploaded some photos of the big fish. The sailfish was about 9 ft long. The next days began at 5:30 AM and all in all we caught a sailfish, two marlin, seven mahi mahi, a wahoo, and a couple hundred tuna. I would love to go into more detail as it was just an amazing time, but I am sure that not even my mom is still reading this post.

If you made it to the end of the post, then let me reward you with a few pics. Check these out.