I was staying at Centara Ras Fushi and the onsite charter was very expensive, with not great reviews, so I decided to research local charters.
I came across Skull Fishing, which had some good reviews.
Online the boat looked modern and fully equipped.
I enquired about a trip targeting GTs, with a requirement for purely catch and release.
Aisha was extremely helpful on email and answered all my questions and we agreed on a half day trip.
The team arrived punctually at 5:30am, the boat was very impressive, modern, fully equipped etc. The crew were in matching branded clothing. All was very professional.
The guys were very friendly and offered us drinks and made sure we were comfortable.
My aim was to catch a GT, which we unfortunately didn’t manage.
However, that is fishing and was certainly not down to any effort made by the two crew.
We worked our socks off for 4 hours to make the most of our trip.
Starting on stick/poppers for GTs straight away.
After 90mins of non stop casting and a blue-fin Trevally, we went for a troll for Wahoo/barracuda etc – Also to give the arms a rest!
Within about 15 mins, we saw a big school of tuna hitting baitfish in the distance, so we decided to make a call to change tactics and chase them.
These were decent sized fish (40kg) jumping 3 ft clear of the water and were moving fast.
We kept chasing the shoals and casting lures at them, which is exciting to say the least.
As the shoals move fast, its difficult to stay in touching distance but the team were fantastic at hunting them down and getting us chances at a hook up.
We did eventually get it right but bizarrely, there was a big Mahi Mahi with the shoal which took the lure before the Tuna.
It was a great fish and a very aerobatic fight.
Deservedly, the fish was returned alive.
By the time the fish was returned, we had lost the tuna shoal, so we tried jigging for about 30 mins.
We then spent the rest of the day going back for the GTs on poppers/sticks.
There were a few follows and a few aborted takes but we did get another nice Blue-fin trevally before time was up.
The trip was really enjoyable and I would wholly advise Skull fishing if you want to get out on the water.
Olly
I was staying at Centara Ras Fushi and the onsite charter was very expensive, with not great reviews, so I decided to research...