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By Marc Inoue

The Arabian peninsula is more or less a white spot on the world's fishing map, with the exception of a small island group in southern Oman, the Hallaniyat islands. This area has made a name for itself for constantly producing the worlds biggest GTs on top water! (See my article in » Kutter & Kueste # 55» covering this amazing fisherie!)
But what about the rest of this huge stretch of land? The Arabian peninsula is bordered by the red sea in the west, the indian ocean to the south, and the the Persian gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the east! The lions share of the arabian peninsula is made up of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the sultanate of Oman , and the Jemen. The rest of the land is divided between several small countries like Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE. Sadly the political situation Jemen is very unstable at the moment, and it is not safe to go there! The other countries however are safe to go and belong to the wealthiest in the world due to vast natural oil and gas reserves! Oman for example is roughly as big as Germany with a population of only 4 million people! That makes for huge uninhabitet stretches of land and a pristine coastline! In the UAE however we find lots of contrast beetween the hustle and bustle and the »Disneyland like« feel of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and the traditional fishing villages of Fujairah and Kalba! But enough of geopolitics! Lets talk about the fishing!

Me and two friends from Switzerland flew into Dubai, which is easy and cheap, as Dubai's international airport is serviced daily by all major airlines from all major airports in Europe! We met at the airport, got a rental car, and off we went!
Well Dubai is not your classical fishing destination, especially since Dubai's coastline has been altered by huge construction projects, that dreged millions of tons of sand from the seafloor, which was used to build several artificial islands of Dubai's coast.
However Dubai is still worth a visit, even from a fisherman's point of view! It offers excellent light tackle, and flyfishing opportunities for several species like Queenfish, Kingfish and different kinds of trevallies! Probably the most experienced charter operator out of Dubai is Nick Bowles, owner of »Ocean Active«. He runs several boats out of »Fishing Village One«, a marina next to the new 4 Seasons resort in Dubai. We went out, passing Dubai's impressive skyline, and found lots of surface action just a couple of miles offshore ! We caught loads of Queenies on fly, and light spinning gear.

We used 7 weight fly rods with a 20lb tippet, and slim streamers, and light spinning rods with small poppers and casting jigs in the 20gr range as lures. Queenfish are spectacular on light gear, and are normally putting on a great arial show!

Another must for every fisherman visiting Dubai is a stop at »KBE The Anglers Hub«! It's much more than just a tackle shop. The owner Hesh is one of the coolest guys I have met in a long time! Of course he is also an avid fisherman, that knows the local area like the back of his hand! Next to stocking a vast array of the best lures, jigs, rods, and reels, he is also very helpful in putting you in touch with the right captains if you are looking for a charter, and setting up your tackle to maximize your chances of success!

After a couple of days of enjoying Dubai it was time for us to move on! Our next destination would be Fujairah. Fujairah is a part of the the UAE, and it takes about one and a half hour to reach by car. The drive takes you trough vast stretches of desert, and mountainous terrain. Even though the area is scarely populated, there are ample gas stations and rest areas on the way!
Hesh recommended to go with Alghwas Fishing Charters, and I can strongly recommend them too! They operate out of Kalba, a small fishing village about 15 km south of Fujairah! They have two 38 ft center console boats with twin 300hp suzukis on the back, and all the latest Simrad electronics! The boats are exceptionally well equipped! Zenaq rods, stella reels, and the best lures and jigs money can buy! It is really not neccessary to bring your own tackle!

We met up with our captain in the marina Kalba, cleared the docks, and headed offshore! As the sun rose, and the early morning mist cleared, we were greeted by a fascinating scenery. Literally thousands of huge ships, oil and gas tankers are moored about 20 miles offshore! Fujairahs coastline leads towards the strait of Hormuz, that connects the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf. It is one of the most important shipping lanes in the world, as an incredible 40% of the world's oil supply passes through the strait of Hormuz en route to Europe, America and Asia!

The ships moored there make for a huge artificial reef system, or FADs (fish aggregating device) that attracts lots of fish, as every offshore fisherman knows that floating objects are like magnets for all types of game fish! Small fish use the shade to hide from predators, and slowly the whole foodchain gathers around! The trick is to find the ships that have been there for a while, the longer the better! Of course our capatian knew wich ships to go to and fish! Otherwise you can easily recognize the ships that have been moored there for a long time, as they have a lot of barnacles and growth on the hull, because they were not moving! However with thousands of ships there, it can be a daunting task to go and look at everyone to find the right ship if you would have to do it all by yourself!

As we arrived at the location our captain tied our boat off to the anchor chain of one of the ships, and within no time we had our baitwell full of frisky google eyes, a type of mackerel. We spend the day casting live baits and lures around the tankers, catching mostly Mahi Mahi and Cobia, on jigs we got Amberjacks, Longtail Tuna, and Groupers.

At different times of the year you can also ecpect to catch several species of Billfish, like Black Marlin and Sailfish as well as Yellowfin Tuna! All in all we had a great day, our crew on the boat did an excellent job in making us feel as comfortable as possible, and they are working hard to find fish all day! After fishing we took one of our Mahi Mahis down to a local restaurant, and had them prepare the fish for us! What a way to end the day! Needless to say that I cant wait to fish the waters of Fujairah again!
To conclude our road trip, we headed for Muscat the capitol of Oman the next day! As I have mentioned before, I fished Oman several times, but always the southern part of the country, so I was eager to experience the fishing off Muscat! The drive from the UAE to Muscat takes about five hours, and even though there is no freeway leading from the UAE to Muscat, it is a pleasant drive on good roads! However there are some things you have to be aware of, when taking a rental car from the UAE into Oman! The border between Oman, and the UAE is heavily guarded, and there is only one bordercrossing for international travel! There are several more in the desert, but they can only be used by the military and local Beduine people! You have to use the bordercrossing in Hatta!! Go anywhere else, and the officers will send you back! Another very important information is, that you need an extra insurance to be allowed to take a rental car from the UAE into Oman! This costs a few Dirham (UAE currency) extra per day, but it is mandatory! I was told the only rental car company that provides this service hassle free is »Dollar rental cars« in the UAE. I took a car from them, and everything went smoothly without problems!

Once in Muscat you have a wide range of accomodations suitable for every budget! We stayed at the Park Inn Radisson where you can expect nice, clean rooms, free WiFi, and a spectacular rooftop pool & bar!
As for the fishing, we went with Rush Charters, a 35ft center console fishing machine with twin 300hp Suzukis on the back! Capt. Rashid is a great guy, and has equipped his boat with the finest electronics, and tackle available! Again – no need to bring your own! Of course you can fish with your own equipment, if you want to! His boat is located at the Marina Bandar Al Rowdha. A very nice marina, with great restaurant and bar, aptly named the Blue Marlin Cafe! There you can enjoy a good meal, and even an ice cold beer after fishing!

The seafloor off Muscat has some very interesting structure close to shore, and then rapidly drops to about 3000 meters 20 odd miles or so offshore! As we met Rashid in the morning of our first fishing day, he told us that he had reports of large schools of Yellowfin Tuna roughly 120km offhore! »That's about 70nm miles one way« I said! No problem for Rashid! This guy wants to catch fish as badly, as you do – believe me! So we fired up the engines, and at 38kts cruising speed headed out to where the tunas were supposed to be. The weather as perfect, the seas were calm, and on the way out we picked up a couple of Mahi Mahis under some floating logs on a stickbait, and even saved a turtle that was entagled in some plastik garbage! As we came close to the tuna grounds we saw from miles away huge schools of dolphin on the surface! A good sign, as dolphins and tuna hunt together!
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The tunas are normally holding just under the dolphins, so you have to race the boat in front of the dolphin school, and cast a stickbait, popper, or jig! I hooked up on the first cast on a Heru Cubera popper, but the fish threw the hook after just a few seconds! No problem I thought, as this was just the first cast! Well it turned out to be not as easy as I thought! Even though we had dolphins around us hunting all the time, the tunas prooved to be very finicky, as they just didnt want to come up and take a lure! After a while we got frustrated , and used live baits with no success! After a while another boat arrived at the scene, a completely tricked out center console with triple 350 Yamahas! Damn! These guys were even faster than us! We were fishing alongside with them, we couldn't get a tuna to bite, they caught one fish after another!! Needless to say that neither Rashid, nor I understood what was going on! Since our luck didn't change we went up to them, and asked them what kind of lures they were using. Amazingly they experienced the same as us, trying everything until the owner tied on a big 25-30cm Ferrari red ultra fast sinking stickbait from Siren Lures. That's a GT lure, normally too big for tuna fishing! Every single fish they caught was caught on that lure!! Since none of us had the same lure in our arsenal, I tried a red Hogy rubber lure with a 120gr jighead. At least size, color, and sink rate were similar to that Siren! And what can I say?! The next chance I got – BAM! Tuna on!!

Incredible how some little details can make all the difference! I am sure we tried 30 or 40 different lures and even live bait before we found out what works! Anyway the spell was broken, and we continued to fish until dusk, before making the long run back to the marina. As a side note: The friendly guy from the other boat lost his magic lure a couple of casts later, and went home as he had nothing similar in his tackle box! We proceeded to catch the biggest Tuna of the day! How fast luck can change in fishing…
The next day the wind had picked up, and the seas were quite rough. Running 30-40 knots in those conditions all the way out to were we were yesterday didn't seem like a good idea. Not only is it extremely uncomfortable, but also in high waves with white caps all around you, surface action of tunas and dolphins is extremely hard to spot. So we decided to run 15-20 miles to the first drop off, and troll for the day! We were pulling surface lures like Islanders and Moldcrafts, trolling along the 600m line and then working our way out towards the tuna grounds. We caught several Mahi Mahis, a big Barracuda, and got bites from a sailfish and nice Black Marlin! Unfortunately both billfish managed to throw the hook while they were jumping. Even though we didn't catch the Marlin, it confirms my guess that the waters off Oman are holding billfish in good numbers, and are a viable alternative for the Marlin angler. However the Marlin fishing off Oman is largely untouched, and with a bit of research, time and effort could become one to rival any other good Marlin fishery on the planet! Well there is a lot of exploring to be done. The last day of our Omani adventure we wanted to devote to jigging some of the structure and wrecks closer to shore. As the weather conditions further deteriorated we knew that fishing wasn't going to be easy, but we gave it a try anyway. With the wind blowing hard, and masses of baitfish scattered far offshore our chances of finding any predators on the nearshore reefs were very low. And so it was! We did catch some Barracudas and loads of Ribbonfish. In fact the Ribbonfish were so thick, that it was virtually impossible to get the jig past them! After getting bit on every drop, and loosing a lot of jigs to the sharp teeth of the Ribbonfish and Barracudas I asked Rashid, if we could go and try to catch some squid. I did this, because I noticed that the commercial fisherman were bringing in huge squids every morning, like the Humbold squid that fishermen catch off the Pacific coast of Mexico. Rashid looked at me, and said »sure! but do you really want to catch those things? They are everywhere! Shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes to get one!« »Are you joking?? Heck yeah! Let's go!« Was our instant reply!

We pulled up the jigs, and Rashid took us to an area where the seafloor drops sharply from about 100m to 300m. On the way he told us that just recently they started catching masses of huge squid. It seems like an invasion, if this is just a seasonal phenomenon, or if the squids are the to stay remains to be seen. Upon arriving at the spot we got the squid gear ready. Heavy boat rods with big electric reels filled with braided line, a kilo of lead, and some big flourescent squid lures attached to the leader. And just like Rashid predicted, we had our first giant squid on within a matter of minutes! We dropped our lures down to 180-200 meters, the LCD display on the electric reel showed us exactly how deep we were, and we started pulling up those aggressive squids immediately! After a couple of drifts over that spot, and hauling up enough squid to have calamari fritti for life, we decided to call it a day and head back to the marina.
That was the last fishing day of our trip! The next day we drove back to Dubai, left the car at the airport, and boarded our flights to take us home.
Looking back on the trip I have to say that it was an awesome experience! I learned a lot, and met many great people! Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to fish the Musandam, an Omani enclave right on the strait of Hormuz – well gotta have a reason to come back!

TACKLE RECOMMENDATIONS
If you choose to fish the UAE and Oman, and whish to bring your own tackle, here is what I recommend:
Dubai:
Light tackle & fly fishing for Queenies, Kingfish and several species of Trevallies. For fly fishing you will need a 7wt rod and reel, 20lb tippets and flies that mimick small, slim baitfishes and poppers.
For spinning we used rods with a casting weight of 10-40gr, 4000 size (Shimano) reels loaded with 20-30lb braid and leaders of 20-30lbs. If there are a lot of Kingfish around you will need to use a short wire trace to avoid cut offs! The most effective lures were small casting jigs from 15-30gr, like the Shout Dangan, or Xesta Afterburner. Also small poppers and stickbaits worked like the Maria Pop Queen or the Tackle House Int!
Fujairah & Oman:
For spinning Mahi Mahis light offshore spinning rods like the CB One VFR Blue Water Plugging rod, with a casting weight of around 60gr, PE line rating 3. Paired with 5000-6000 size (Shimano) spinning reels, and 50 – 60 lb leaders.
For Yellowfin tuna heavier popping / spinning rods, like the Black Hole Cape Cod, Zenaq Fokeeto Tuna etc. These rods have a casting weight of around 120gr and a PE line rating 6! Plenty of power to catch also larger tuna in a reasonable time!
For freelining live baits to Mahi Mahi & Sailfish we used jigging rods in the 200gr class with baitrunner reels, or multipliers.
For jigging Longtail tunas, Amberjacks and snappers Slow Pitch jigging was far more effective than conventional speed jigging! We used rods from several manufacturers like Evergreen Slow Jerker, Black Hole and Beat. Reel only multipliers, like the new Accurate Valiant, Shimano Ocea Jigger or Evergreen Oceanus. Reels are spooled with ca. 300 meters of PE 2 or 3 line. Jigs mostly in the 180 – 230 gr range like Seafloor Control Rector, Maxel Bumble Bee, Sea Falcon or any other leaf shaped jig! The Amberjacks however preferred longer, slimmer jigs like the SFC Messiah. Best color is hard to tell, depending on light conditions, cloud cover etc.! It definetly pays to have some flourescent glow on the jig!
For trolling it is best to use stand up rods in the 30/50lb range with matching reels, as it is hard to tell what will grab your lure. Could be a Sailfish, then a 20lb trolling outfit would be enough, or a Marlin of a couple of hundred pounds, or a Yellowfin tuna… Since it is impossible to bring that much tackle down, it is best to stick with an allrounder! For lures I recommend Islanders with a strip bait, or silicone strip inserted, Moldcraft Hookers, or Wide Range, Pakula Hotheads etc. The choices are endless! Anything between 15 – 25cm in length that creates some commotion on the surface should work!
For any information, tackle tips etc. contact me at: magurocharters@gmail.com
Further information:
KBE Anglers Hub:
www.Knotbigenuff.com
Owner Hesh El Brolossy
M6-B, HDS Business Centre, Cluster M, JLT, Dubai, 112233
Tel.: +971 4 458 3422
info@knotbigenuff.com