Mahi Mahi Adventure

 

Mahi Mahi Adventure 9th July 2023

 

I just came back from vacation on Saturday. This trip was planned on Sunday. It was a sharing trip. It was supposed to be 7 anglers for the Mahi Mahi adventure. One Angler did not turn up, so we ended being six. I was happy as more space on the boat.

Usually, the charter arranged plenty of live bait for Mahi trips. But this time they mentioned we may need to get live bait during our trip but luckily, they got 50 pieces last evening and was available.

Mahis usually hang around structures and anchored ships. Our first location was to a Buoys. Just before we reached it, we found some top water activity. It was long tail tuna. I was casting a 30 grams jig. The rod was Shimano Nexawe with Stradic 3000 reel. It as a light setup for fishing at Fujairah Sea. I got the strike on the first cast. You can see the video here. Small long tail tuna.

All tuna suddenly disappeared and after a brief wait the captain suggested we move one. We reached the Buoys and saw some top water activity. The fish was shining we understood the Mahis were there. We started casting I was on the same setup. The Mahis were small, so I wanted to try my light setup. I got a strike and landed a bull. Small one but did fight well. I understood that Mahi could really tire us if they were big.

One thing about Mahi Mahi was it is amazing to see it jumping. It jumps high when the hooks are set. When it reaches the boat, it tries to run as much as possible still jumping. It Makes such a show that we get mesmerized by the beautiful color and action. Sadly, they lose the color so quickly when they are out of the water.

Later we moved to live Bait. I started using my Ripple fisher aquila rod with Shimano stella 8000. I have to agree that it was too heavy setup for these small one. But I have to wait until September for the bigger ones to enjoy this setup.

Overall, a great trip. Enjoyed every bit of this five-hour adventure on the Fujairah seas. Thanks to waters.

Trip to Khorfakkan 18th June - with amber jacks and Red snappers ( Pinjalo Snapper)

 

We were six anglers ready to take this trip. When I called the captain to check how the trip looks he raised a concern on the weather dur to the typhoon. However later he confirmed we can go and try. We planned to jig all day with finishing with bait fishing for last two hours due to Pinjalo snapper season.

 

We all assembled at 0445am. The boat departed at around 5 30 am. When we reached our first location I got the first strike followed by three more strikes. The fight was good and appeared different. The location is famous for Amberjack. But I knew this was not AJ. We a good size trevally. This was followed by two more trevally to the boat. One angler was fighting hard and he landed his first AJ.

It was a great start, and the next drift was similar. There were Trevallies and amberjack. After around two hours we had two drifts with no fish and thought time to move to other locations. Next location I got a long tail tuna. We did not expect a long tail tuna at this season. As the fish was coming to the surface faraway, we thought it could be a Cobia. Never mind I had good fun landing the long tail. Later a fellow angler landed an AJ.

Then when we move to other location it was dry and the summer heat was taking toll. The captain went past out red snapper location and found a big school on the sonar. We decided to anchor the boat and start bottom fishing.

He had 4 kilo of frozen squid. We got the rigs from captain. We used no 16 weight sinkers. The sabiki was with three hooks. I was lucky to get a rainbow runner on bait. We had many Pinjalo snappers back-to-back.

After the anchor I started feeling nausea and after two fishes had to rest for some time. After few hours of getting Pinjalo snapper we moved to our first spot on the way back. We got few more AJ’s. I did not get any strike. I felt nausea and went to sleep.

It was great day of fishing. We had the best catch this season. Although the weather was bad fishing was great. Thanks to the sea