Musandam is where we found GTs initially in Oman and the Middle East and all of the GT madness started many years ago. This was when we first started fishing and promoting GT fishing in this region and we got laughed at quite a bit and only a few brave fisherman came and fished with us initially as the Middle East tends to have a bit of a negative name, but as clients started to come and fish and the great potential that we found started to grow it soon became evident that Oman was going to be an amazing destination and that there was a huge potential for Musandam and then later Hallaniyat Islands Southern Oman to become an excellent fishing and holiday destination with some great fishing, culture and people.
So for me I consider Musandam our home base and the center of GT fishing in this region, it is were everything started and were we set up out first operation which to this day is going strong. We started our GT charters in this region with a small 1986 Boston Whaler with twin 140hp 2 stroke engines and 65lbs braid on our rigs and we soon found out that we were way under gunned and quickly moved up to 80lbs, then 100lbs and finally 130lbs. But now we have gone back to an even 100lbs on our gear.
For me Musandam is like going home on holiday from boarding school. There is always a great excitement and I know everybody and virtually know every rock under and above the water and there is a story for almost every fishing spot of huge fish and great memories. Still Musandam is an amazing destination and we tend to run short and day trip in Musandam with mainly local UAE and Dubai clients as it is only a 2 hour drive from Dubai but the fishing is still great and the last couple of weeks the place have been on fire. While I was away in Southern Oman and Socotra Islands Yemen the boyz Capt LB, Capt Damon and Capt Cameron have been hammering the fish with Double digit days on GTs quite often. One of the best days was when Jon took my 72 year old Dad fishing and they got 17 GTs in a day, for Oman that is huge numbers! In the last 2 weeks the guys have caught over 100 GTs, which has been amazing and not all monster fish but a lot of 30kg+ and 40kg+ fish with some monsters snapping up some of the guys and one fish reefing a client in 40ms of water. All good fin and great to see the Dam on fire again.
The cool part about the Musandam is that we can fish for about a month longer than Southern Oman as it is further North and not affected by the monsoon as much and so when Southern Oman season finished mid April we are still fishing in Musandam till early June and a lot of the big fish and numbers come in now towards end of the season although the heat gets a bit hot but if the fish are there no point in stopping!!
Here a bunch of pictures from the last couple of weeks, hopefully have a few more in the coming weeks. I'm going to taking a live aboard trip with Jon end of this month as our end of season trip for a couple of days so really excited for this one to stay up in the Musandam on a 70ft Dhow. We have a couple of spots left open if anyone is keen to come and experience the Musandam!
Jaco and the Guys having a good time the night before at our Lodge GT House
Cruising up on Al Sayyad our 40ft GT Machine!
Jaco in action
Nice GT
Our Ocean Active stick baits have been killing the fish at the moment.
Bending on the Race Point. Sami and Paul have kindly sponsored our boats with Race Point rods, so we now we can handle big fish and not have any breakages.
Deep burn!
Very happy client! The GT kiss!
Capt Damon in the action on our new red and white head stick
Trev in the action on one of his Carpenters!
Nice fish!
This fish was a stud and fat, almost a Tuna Trevally!!
Trev in action again!!
One of the best times of day cruising up to the top of the Musandam at sunrise!
Hitting it on the Race Point!
Very happy!
Race Point doing the trick again!
Some epic fights!
A nice Black Omani GT!
Double Trouble!
Al Sayyad 2 our second boat cruising in formation on the way home after a good day out! Awesome sea conditions!
Another morning, another excited group!
