It has been a long summer waiting for the Khareef (monsoon) winds to die down in Southern Oman to be able to head back there and get back on the water. It has been quite nice to have the Musandam season start early and then followed by Southern Oman so we have been able to work on both 100% and get everything up to speed.
Team Ocean Active headed down to Southern Oman to our villa in the small fishing town of Shuwayamiah. The team consisted of Jon Viney our shop manager, Kegan Mattheys one of our GT guides and Captains, David De Kock one of the partners and myself. The last couple of months there has been a lot of trash talk on what was going to happen and who was going to do what. Keegz and David (Sakkie) have been hitting the gym in a big way and eating healthy so the boyz were ready. We left Dubai at 05.00am and headed through Al Ain border into Oman and enjoyed the 10 hour drive to Shuwayamiah. All through the trip there was a lot of banter and the boyz even brought some muscle weight boosting powder!!
After a long drive we came through the mountain and the bay of Shuwayamiah lay in front of us, a truly amazing sight that I could see 100 times and still smile! The sea was blue and calm and the excitement in the car went through the roof!! We drove to the villa and met up with Ashraf our partner in Shuwayamiah and Sultan. It was great to see the guys again and to catch up. After a coffee and a bit to eat there was to much anticipation and we had to put a light rod together and head for the beach. Sheer beauty walking along the beach spinning into the rolling waves, pure relaxation. We could see quite a few sardine shoals and some fish but didn't catch to much apart from small big eye trevally and barracuda. But still nice just to be casting into the Indian Ocean again!
We got back to the villa and started to prepare our tackle for the next day. We were also going to use the old boat as the new boat would only be delivered from Salalah towards the end of this week ready for the International trips. So we worked on the boat to get it ready and tested the engines and everything was set. We had a early night and sleep was not a problem after the long drive.
We woke up before light and had a quick breaky and headed for the marina with the boat. The boat was launched and the one engine started to give a bit of problem, we tried to sort the engine out but finally took the boat out of the water to clean the carbs after a long summer sitting in the sun! After a couple of hours we decided to fish inshore once we got the boat back in the water and running smoothly as the wind had picked up a bit. We headed up the cost equipped with our light 30lbs spinning gear.
We fished along the cliffs dropping into the sea and caught a variety of smaller fish from blacktip trevally to big eye treally. In the distance we spotted some birds diving and went to investigate, when we arrived we saw shoals of sardines being pushed in to the shore by bigger fish. After a few minutes we started to see big trevally moving in and out of the shoals. The boyz were getting a serious case of fish fever and lures were flying all over the place. We finally started to fish properly and had a few takes and landed smaller blacktip trevally. Keegz hooked one of the sardines and put it on the KGS to try and hook up to one of the big rays swimming around. After a minute or two he was into a decent fish which turned out to be a huge golden trevally after a good fight! After a few high fives and some pictures the golden was released. For the next few hours we fished the shoal and landed 8 goldens and got smoked by about 4 more on our light gear with plastics and small swim baits. I also managed to catch a big queenfish in the 13kg mark. The queenie pulled off about 100m of line and gave an amazing fight. It was an incredible afternoon session which I will remember for a long time!
We got back to the villa content that the day had not started to well but ended very well. After a good meal and a few more modifications to the popping gear we called it a night and headed for bed. The alarms went off early and everyone was out of bed ready to go after a bit of breaky. We headed for the marina and launched the boat and headed out to the main islands. The sea was perfect with slow rolling swell and a slight breeze! We made good time and arrived in about a hour to the first spot. The big poppers and stickbaits started raining onto the spots. After a few minutes Jon had a bus fish come up and hit his popper and bit through the leader. We have no idea what it was but it was big! Sakkie then had a big blacktip trevally come up and hit the popper but was landed fairly quickly! The muscles were slowly warming up and the guys were getting good distance and working the lures well.
We tried one of two more spots but the GTs were not playing along, when the sun started to rise a bit higher in the sky we noticed the water had a bit of a green colour and the water was cold, so we think there was a cold current pushing in and keeping the GTs deep. We fished a couple more spots with the KGS and 50lbs gear and had a few good fish hit us in the white water. I finally hooked up to a good fish and pulled the fish out with the boat and then after a while a big bluefin treally came to the boat. The fish was a beautiful specimen and very dark compared to bluefin we have caught in other locations. We found the shoal and spent a good few hours hooking, fighting, landing and loosing some big bluefin! One of our local friends came to join us for a while and they chummed the water with some liveabait and we saw him hook into a good fish on livebait, after a hectic fight he landed about a 20kg Amberjack on handline in 8m of water!!! This was the second time in a week that the local guys have showed us up on handlines!! Might have to get me one handline!!
We fished around the islands and caught a few more trevally and emperor. We had lunch in a secluded bay full of juvenile big eye trevally which was great fun teasing them in. Later in the afternoon we were fishing one of the points with white water breaking over some rocks when Kegan noticed a huge squid near the white water. He pitched a small stickbait and went tight with the squid, after a decent fit and the squid shooting ink he landed the squid and there was much excitement at the thought of the calamari rings we were going to eat!! A mintue or two later Sakkie was pulling in his stickbait and a smaller squid attacked the lure and Sakkie went tight and landed another squid. This time the squid shot ink into the boat and it was all a good joke. Keegan grabbed the leader thinking it was now safe to land the squid but big mistake he took the full force of an angry squid ink attack! The ink hit him square in the stomach and all over the boat. It took about 5 mintues for us to pick ourselves off the deck from laughing! Definately one of the funniest things I have seen while fishing!!
We spent a few more hours trying some more spots and managed to land a big barracuda and a nice yellow dot trevally. With the sun going down we decided to call it a day and headed back to the mainland. It was great to be back in Southern Oman with flat seas and some good fishing. We did not manage to find he GTs but caught 5 different trevally species in one and a half days fishing. Hopefully the cleaner warmer water will move in over the next few days and the GTs will be loose.
We start our first trip at the end of this week and look forward to a great season, especially with our new 37ft Seamaster boat with twin 225hp 4 stroke yamahas coming this week. The boat is a slightly smaller version of the boat we use in the Musandam so at least we can ride in comfort this year!
Tackle used:
Rods Race Point 250, Race Point 200, Carpenter WV80, Smith KGS70MH, Shimano Aerocast 240XH, MC Works, Shimano Beastmaster 240H.
Reels Stella 20000, Stella 18000, Stella 8000, Stella 5000, Stradic 8000, Stradic 5000, Stradic 6000, Sustain 5000, Accurate SR12, Saragosa 14000
Braid Tuffline 130, 100, 80, 50 and 30lbs, Shout 30lbs
Lures Ocean Active Wahoo 200gr and 150gr, OA Ulua 200gr, 150gr, 90gr, 60gr, OA Cubera 180gr, 90gr, Orion Big Foot 180gr, 120gr, 90gr, 45gr, Riptide Plastics, Mc Arthy Plastics, OA Needle nose plugs.
Cheers,
Nick
