Ed.
Hey mate my parents are from sri lanka so i have the benefit of a few local contacts there, last year we took a military plane and went north to trincomelle where the fishing was no good at all due to the locals still using dynamite in their water, it was sad to find out but life is such a struggle there sometimes that survival is utmost, especially when compared to conserving for the future.
This time i organised with a Friend of a Friend a guy who had access to a slow old but big fishing boat and operated out of hikkaduwa he cost me about 200 for a nine to eleven hour day and he took me to the shelf and to a gt spot, on the troll we picked up mackerel and wahoo, we also got some shark mackerel and although we dont eat them here they tasted great over there, apparently due to a difference in the salinity levels, we found gt where he said they would be, we boated a few with the biggest being about 17 kg.
If you are interested mate i can tell you the guys to go with, it all depends on what time of the year you would be visiting as there is always only one coast at a time with good fishing due to the constant monsoon winds hitting the country, i think there is some awsome potential for tropic fishing in sri lanka which has not been even close to discovered. My next trip there will be in march next year to a place called the great basses, it is a small few islands to the south of sri lanka which apparently can only be visited in march or april......
There is also some great diving options there as i recently found out....and you can keep the missus happy at the spa for about one tenth of the cost here.... Everybody wins