Oman Update with Ocean Active

[Nick Bowles]

Morning,

I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and hope that the year is filled with bending rods and screaming reels! The last couple of months have been very hectic and a lot happening in UAE and Oman so I have not posted to much as time has been running away from us! I've been getting a few queries on whats happening! So I thought I would take a bit of time and update what is going on with fishing, boats, destinations etc. There is a lot of exciting things that have happened, big fish caught, new captains and new boats!! We started fishing in Oman 8 years ago when no one new where Oman was or that there were any fish here, but over the years we have developed this fishing and we continue to find new fishing grounds, new fish and we are very excited that now Oman is seen as one of the top GT destinations.

I'll start with Hallaniyat Islands Southern Oman as this is the talking point at the moment. We have now opened up a new villa out on the Hallaniyat Islands. This is the same villa that I stayed in on my first trip to the Islands 4 years ago. So it is awesome that we are now staying here again. The big bonus of staying on the island is that it cuts out the 2-4 hour run out and back from the island everyday and fishing grounds from the mainland and also gives more fishing time and we can still fish in bad weather as we don;t have to run into the sea. The villa is on the main Hallaniyat Island and is 1km from one of the best GTs spots in Southern Oman so we can take a break during the day for lunch have a sleep and fish early morning and late afternoon. Really awesome stuff.

Small marina at the new villa on the island
Rods ready on the terrace
Terrace overlooking the main GT fishing area between Soda and Hallaniyat Island
Upstairs terrace.
Marina with one of the best GT spots in Southern oman in the background

We have also done a few trips over the last couple of months but the weather did turn nasty with two low pressures that caused chaos with the weather in the South. But we still caught some awesome fish and had some good trips. Here a few of the pictures.







Black Jack

[Nick Bowles]

Now that we have the new villa on the island up and running this leaves the mainland villa open with more capacity to focus on other types of fishing which includes shore fishing and inshore fishing for bluefish, bream, smaller trevally, permit, queenfish etc. We have a second boat that can run the inshore trips and it is really worth spending a day chasing the smaller fish on light tackle. really good fun!! Here a few fish from the last couple of trips.

Permit on small lures

Bream on surface lures! Awesome!!
Huge queenfish by the boat load!


We have also been having some really good fishing in the Musandam up North and our home base. We have been getting some big GTs, sailfish, kingfish and also now have a second new boat that we launched last week. So things are really lookin good in the Musandam for the end of the season and to get the big GTs coming in. We also have two new captains that have joined the team Cameron Mundy and Damon Beattie, both from South Africa and fished extensively and really great guys!



Big GT caught yesterday on a Shout Jig.
Wayno with a good GT caught on a Race Point 200!
New 32ft ready to be launched
Capt Damon on his new ride!
Capt Cameron with a good kingfish on small lure and Maestro prototype Race Point Rod.

[Nick Bowles]

We have also working on getting charters up and running in Muscat the capital of Oman which is in the center of Oman and allows us to have access to both the North and the South. We can now offer charters on our 31ft Kevlar Cat which is set up mainly to target the marlin and YFT off Muscat but we will also be running a luxury liveboard dhow trips which we will take up and down the coast depending on where the fish are and what we want to target. The boat is very well set up to jig and we have a few new areas we will be exploring. The liveaboard can sleep up to 6 clients and has all the luxury of a super yacht, there is satellite TV, Wifi, surround sound, comfortable lounges, huge kitchen and just an all round amazing machine!

The Dhow is called Ibra
Aft lounge
Fore lounge
Sat TV and surround sound
Rooms
Bathrooms
Dinning room and bar with a view
Magnum the 31ft Kevlat Cat
550 horses!
Plenty of deck space!

Lastly we have been working hard on getting our shop up and running smoothly. I must say I take my hat off to all shop owners and managers, retail is not the easiest but we have now got the hang of it and we are having a lot of fun with the shop in Dubai and can now offer the first sportfishing shop in the region and can help supply the local market with a wide range of products. We have a good range of products to suit our fishing out here which includes products like Shout, Race Point, ASWB, Fisherman, Tufline, Centro, Shimano and this last week we became the Carpenter dealers for this region. We have had a lot of help from clients and friends and appreciate all the hard work and help!!





Coffee bar with fresh poaster coffee, best in Dubai!!



Over the last few months and years we have been really lucky and had a lot of help from Sami from Saltywater Tackle, Mogi-san from Pro Shop Mogi and Luke from Gara Pro Shop. It is amazing to work with guys from all parts of the globe to promote good destinations, service, products and to promote popping and jigging. This is our game and we love it!!

Hope this was not to long winded but this is everything from the last couple of months and hopefully we will have a few more regular trip reports now that we getting back to the fishing side of things!!

Cheers,
Nick

[Andy Rowe]

Love that Dhow it's a beauty of a mother boat!!

[Nick Bowles]

Hi Andy, The Dhow has come out very well as it is a good mix between modern yacht and traditional dhow. Really well laid out for a mothership. We can now access some areas that were difficult before in luxury!

cheers,
Nick

[Matt Born]

Love it all Nick!! Can't wait for another trip South... Looking forward to doing better than last year!!!

To anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of dealing with Nick or Ocean Active, I can assure you that they are the best in the region, a more professional charter service offering the 'full package' - you will not find!!

Wish you boys all the best and can't wait for the next trip!!!

[Martin Gundersen]

Hi Nick
Any plans to go online with your shop?

[Nick Bowles]

Hi Martin, We are building a new website at the moment with an online shop, we have been working on it for a while and should be about another two months, hard to sit in the designers office when the weather is good and fish biting!! For us here we have a diverse market so we do a bit of everything including flyfishing, offshore, inshore and of course the popping and jigging gear. So we cover a few styles. We will not hold huge ranges but what is good for our region and the brands that we have built up through relationships on the water or products we have used and now they are up to the standard of our fish. I'll post once it is up and running.

Cheers,
Nick

[George Relf]

Everything in that post was awesome. The location, the boats, the dhow the shop, etc. Well done Nick. Awesome job 

How big do the bream get out there? Looks like there are some horses.

[Nick Bowles]

Hi George, many thanks! We are really happy with the operation at the moment and can cover all the areas we wanted to get to in Oman from North to South.

The bream are huge, really awesome to catch as you catch them on top water lures and sight fish to them a lot. I have had a few friends from down under that are coming to fish for the bream instead of the GTs!! The biggest bream I've seen is around 12kgs. I had a bream hit a stickbait a couple of years back off one of the points that I recon was bigger and it broke off 60lbs Blackwater Fluro leader on the take and swam off with my stickbait!!!

Here a couple more pictures from bream caught off the shore. One of my favorite fish and pull like hell!



On fly.




We also get some big bluefish normally around the same places we get the bream.




Cheers,
Nick

[Raymond Yong]

Love it all Nick!! Can't wait for another trip South... Looking forward to doing better than last year!!!

To anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of dealing with Nick or Ocean Active, I can assure you that they are the best in the region, a more professional charter service offering the 'full package' - you will not find!!

Wish you boys all the best and can't wait for the next trip!!!

Can't agree more than that Matt, really can't wait to get back there and miss you all......

[Dan Konig]

Awesome post. Those bream are monsters.

[Nick Bowles]

Thanks, Matt, Raymond and Dan. As long as we catch a few fish and have a good time it is all worth it!!

Only problem is that I thought owning a fishing business I could tell my wife I'm going to work when I go fishing, but still does not work!! Have to think of another excuse!!!

Cheers,
Nick

[Gary Prerost]

Thanks Nick thats exactly part of the reason I love the site so we can see great locations like yours hope to see you soon Gary

[Nick Bowles]

Totally agree, awesome to see where everyone is fishing and catching! The problem is that it highlights to many cool places and my bucket list keeps on growing!!

Cheers,
Nick