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Date: Feb28-Mar6, 2010
Vessel: Nooraanee2
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This is the part-2 of the Maldives trip down south to Huvadhoo atoll onboard the favorite LOB vessel “Nooraanee2”. It was a 7-day charter instead of the 4-day charter of the group before us that was led by Jigdemon.
It was a trip that was planned almost a year ago after the successful March-2009 trip. Every detail was not spared during considerations and we had seamless flights connection between the international flight and the domestic ones.
We spent 2 of the 7 days searching for the elusive underwater peak in the 1.5 degree channel and the legendary high point still remains a dream for us. Timing the search was not easy as it has to coincide with calm and predictable weather because out there, there is absolutely no protection against the element should it makes an about turn.
On the first search mission, we left northern-most Huvadhoo at around 9am after making a difficult decision of leaving a potentially good fishing ground of YFTs. We quickly realized the mission proved more difficult than expected - the peak was not a simple one where the depth decreases gradually; it is more like a peak out of 500m depth, with the surrounding gradual slope ended up at closed to 400m. We abandoned the search after 3 hours because without a reasonably shallow anchor point, we could not camp out there.
The team decided to have another go a few days later and this time we set off at first-light – we had the crew to thank for accommodating our request as you can imagine the pain to wake up at 5am to pull anchor. This time the weather was scorching hot with no cloud resulting in somewhat eerie and mirror-flat sea. With nothing in sight in all direction in the horizon, we combed the area pretty thoroughly based on some input from the locals, as well as the sea-charts onboard. The peak must have a pretty small outcrop to evade the kind of combing we have executed. We told ourselves we did our best and our part when we finally called off the search and sailed back to Huvadhoo.
Back to the atoll, we spend our days trying out some possible fish feeding zones in the outer reefs and believed we have located a few. Due to the size of the atoll, we still spend considerable amount of time travelling even with this relatively fast 13-knots LOB vessel.
On the last day we found the working area of some professional YFT fishing vessels; these are not the traditional pole and line fishing boats - they fish with monofilament hand lines. These professional fishery men are pretty protective of the “spot” and will move on quickly as our vessel gets nearer.
The YFT are pretty evasive and are more difficult to track down than the reef dwellers that we normally go after. Luck and tribal knowledge has to come in sync and we were lucky a few times in this 7-day trip. At the same area we boated a 25kg specimen, we had 4 strong and frantic burst off after some hard fight. 1 of the burst off was a confirmed big YFT because we can see it down the crystal clear and calm water when I was left between 25-30m of lines to go. We were told a YFT fishing vessel spent 2.5 hours battling a 99kg YFT recently, and a super big one in the 120kg class was lost after 4.5hour of fight on hand line!
When the YFT were not firing, the dogtooth came out to hunt.. Within the 2-3 hours of tidal movement on the last fishing day, we boated 6 and had 11 burst off; all with the dogtooth signature-runs and head-shaking jerks.
Night fishing was phenomenal when we were able to resist the homing instinct to the air-con cabins. As we berth on the outer reefs, we had many dolphins coming very near to the flood light in search for flying fishes. Jigging and popping quickly becomes a spectators sport because tiredness quickly set in with hit rates faster and higher than jigging in the day. Result can be unpredictable ranging from massive black jacks and big-eyes, as well as dogtooth, huge red bass and of course, sharks. Some of us instead prefer to lie on the safari chair on the top-deck with a beer in hand, and waiting for shooting stars to appear – and of course falling asleep in the process.
We caught quite a few big coral trouts on pop. I have caught more sharks this trip on pop than the catch of the same on all my past popping trips added together. Strangely there are only 2 GTs caught this trip (the big one on barbless was lost at the boat side when the popper caught on the landing net) and red basses rule the inner reefs.
2 of the team mates decided that Chinese cuisines are the way to go and did up some pretty kick-ass dishes. We had marinated chicken hanging out in the burning afternoon sun to dry and that draws conversions amongst the crew. We debated on the cause of “lo-ko” of groupers when 2 groupers of the same species, done in the same way can result in 1 rock-hard fish and another with tender and juicy flesh. I thought the chili crab sauce on ang-go-li was world class – and pray tell me PL and AM.. Where did all the ingredients comes from???
It was a trip that we will not give up for any thing; we enjoyed (and suffered) the crude and merciless jokes we inflict on each other; all of us put on weight from the 3 delicious daily meals; and the quality of the catch was fantastic given the amount of time we spent fishing and not travelling and exploring.
And to those doggies that got our jigs as souvenirs, we will be back.
First Yellowfins
Sharks
Dogtooths
Groupers
And many more.....
Theres wayy too many pictures, but I hope I have done justice to his excellent write-up. Hope you all enjoy
