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Nick Bowles

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Magical Maldives!
June 04, 2011, 02:17:43 PM













































Last Edit: June 04, 2011, 04:34:19 PM by Nick Bowles

Nick Bowles

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Re: Magical Maldives!
June 04, 2011, 02:18:42 PM















Last Edit: June 04, 2011, 04:35:35 PM by Nick Bowles

Dan Konig

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Re: Magical Maldives!
June 04, 2011, 04:06:04 PM
Some great pics there!

What is the fish in the pic below the mantas?

Nick Bowles

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Re: Magical Maldives!
June 04, 2011, 04:28:04 PM
Hi Dan, We call it a Lunar Tail Grouper. Really good looking fish!

Cheers,
Nick

Kasey Leong

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Re: Magical Maldives!
June 04, 2011, 10:29:29 PM
A great report Nick.

I hope this doesn't take anything away from your post, but I've always wondered - with such a great fishery, where are all the big Maldivian GTs ??? ???
Watashi wa kawaii scon class hetadesu bakadesu JooNya Poop Poop

Nick Bowles

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Re: Magical Maldives!
June 05, 2011, 12:18:18 AM
Hi Kasey, We have discussed this many many times and I'm not sure of the answer but do have a theory. Firstly the biggest GT I have ever seen was in the Maldives about 3 years ago. I thought the fish was three GTs swimming together but it turned out to be one massive fish at a guestimate maybe 70kg+. It was huge and swam right under the boat in the middle of calm water next to one of the islands. I almost fell off the boat! But apart from that we have only caught a handful of 35kg+ GTs.

It is definitely not because of overfishing as I have fished places with big GTs and a lot of commercial and subsistence fishing, so there must be another reason. Something that I think might happen, and this is only a wild opinion, is that the Maldives in a big nursery of small resident GT. When the GTs get into the 30kg+ range they migrate up to Lakshadeep islands and then onto Oman and down towards the East Coast of Africa. In the Musandam Oman and Southern Oman we see a small population of resident GTs up to about 15kgs which we can usually find in the same place most trips they are there most of the season and then we get waves of massive GTs coming throughout the season. We will find them arriving at certain points and will move through the area and then disappear again. We can also see that the fishing arriving are new because sometimes they are either all fat or thin or even different colours sometimes.

So I think that the big GTs migrate long distances depending on the season, currents and water temperature but also they will arrive in certain places for fish spawns, turtle nesting, sardine runs etc. So the Maldives small GTs stay close to the safety of the shallow water, atolls and abundant food till they get big enough to cross an ocean and chase bigger prey and not be eaten on the way.

Only a theory! Cheers,
Nick

Nathan Cefai

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Re: Magical Maldives!
June 06, 2011, 10:35:02 AM
WOW WOW WOW,far out,some cracker photos in there mate,wicked trip..

Nick Bowles

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Magical Maldives
June 06, 2011, 12:48:49 PM
Hi Nathan, Many thanks! Maldives makes it easy to take good photos because the place is so stunning! Got a few trips end of this year again, really looking forward to it!

Cheers,
Nick

Peter Lowe

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Re: Magical Maldives!
June 06, 2011, 01:09:06 PM

Sacco Gerard

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Re: Magical Maldives!
June 06, 2011, 05:42:30 PM
When the GTs get into the 30kg+ range they migrate up to Lakshadeep islands

Vincenzo Caccico

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Re: Magical Maldives!
June 06, 2011, 06:45:41 PM
Nice trip Nick the boat captain told me that you fished ih North Atoll near Haa Alifu!

This is virgin Atoll and your photo confirm me that!

Vincenzo

Nick Bowles

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Re: Magical Maldives!
June 06, 2011, 09:41:25 PM
Hi Peter, Maldives is well worth the trip if you keen to have a relaxed trip, with good variety. It is not a big fish destination but I would suggest anyone that pops and jigs should visit at least once! Amazing place visually.

Hi Gege, I think Lakshadeep will be similar to Maldives with the big fish carrying on towards the Oman and East Africa Coast, but hopefully this theory will be wrong and you'll get some bus GTs. Look forward to hearing the feedback.

Hi Vincenzo, We fished up North was good. We chose a few places from charts and tides and some of them worked out well. As normal when we found current we found fish. Have a trip down south this coming season to a couple of places that seem to be similar, hopefully will be good. I'm interested to see if they fish similar as we mainly fish north.

Cheers,
Nick

Vincenzo Caccico

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Re: Magical Maldives!
June 06, 2011, 11:42:34 PM
Yes i think that Lakshadeep are similar to Maldives in particular if you fish the extreme north atolls like Shaviyany, Haa Dhaalu and Haa Alifu.

In Maldives if you find current sure you can find fish! ;D

Vincenzo

Robin Loi

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Re: Magical Maldives!
July 11, 2011, 05:55:17 PM
awesome Maldives! even more awesome report!

Cam Munro

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Re: Magical Maldives!
July 12, 2011, 01:43:29 AM
From personal experience, when on a boat with 8 guys from SA, make sure there is more than one Aussie...there are wake up calls and then there are wake up calls... ;)