It is fun to encounter many different fishermen globally by running GT Fishing services.  I just received an interesting requrest from Irish fisherman Paddy for conducting a interview the other day.  So here it is and you may find it interesting to read a bit perpective of our services!

http://irelandfishingdiaries.com/2014/04/01/shin-achiwa-gt-sport-fishers/

Shin's GT Sport Fishers

Shin is the owner of  GT Fishers Maldives. Having fished in several places for GT’s, he found the perfect home for his love of giant trevally fishing in the Maldives and what a location with the most gorgeous tropical islands in the World. To combine your honeymoon with a  GT trip is the stuff of dreams to most anglers, or to the more serious fisherman you can stay at a more reasonable rate hotel in the capital Male than the resort islands with a group of friends. I was in the Maldives in 2007 though unfortunately not fishing, and can testify to the beauty of the place


http://www.gtfishers.com


So now over to Shin…..


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Me: How did you begin in fishing?


SA: I was raised in the port town facing Bay.  Dad took me to small fish fishing time to time.

Then around age 12 or so, started lure and fly fishing that was the time to get really in.  However, when I left Japan for the US for University, stopped all in order to focus on study and turn around my life from drop out state.


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Me: When did you get more serious into fishing?


SA: When I got married with my wife about 5 years ago, finally let myself restart fishing with my wife after 2 decades plus, then start going to fishing around Tokyo every weekend.  Then gradually escalated for higher state of fishing from managed fishing ponds to Hokkaido Salmon, Native Trouts Amemasu, Seabass, etc…


Me: Can you tell us about GT’s?


SA:2011 January, went to Palau for vacation and 2 day GT fishing for the first time.  Could not catch GTs but some red snappers, groupers, barracuda.  Went back to Palau 3 more times in following 6 months to catch GTs and get bigger size.  That was the start of GT.  July/August 2011, went to Okinawa and Tokunoshima in Japan for two more expeditions.  September 2011, went to Komodo Island in Indonesia then to Maldives.  This trip in Maldives, hired Dhoni boat from resort for 2 days; caught record 25kg back then but stressed with slow 5 knot boat; then, met current local partner at the airport on the way back to Japan and complained about lack of speedboat then decided to jointly look for speedboat in Maldives. November 2011 – less than 1 year of GT fishing start, I bought my own boat in Maldives while living in Tokyo, Japan, by wiring 88,000 USD to the local partner whom I met him only once at the time.  January 2012, took the boat for the first expeditions in Noonu Atoll, then decided to start external guide services since I cannot go to Maldives every weekend for fishing from Tokyo where I work in multinational enterprise as Japan President running over 100m USD business portfolio.


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GT is the ultimate fishing with casting and standing fight.  Particularly topwater fishing is exciting.  Typically keep casting 600+ times everyday for 10-12 hours daily and go on for 7 days straight if not more.  My body structure changed completely even after a decade of weight training.  Chest size pumped up from 90cm to 108cm after starting GT in 8 months.


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GT Fishing Topwater game started from Japan.  There are GTs in Japan as Tokara islands hold world record but fish stock is much less; casting all day and end up having only 2-3 bites and lucky to catch 1 while majority of people/expeditions end up with no catch.  I like to land over double digits including GTs and other fishes with some surprises such as monster grouper, Sharks, sailfish, and Napoleon Fishes.


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I would like to keep the wall low for any bigginers to try GT fishing.  So we keep top brand tackles for reasonable rentals such as Carpenter, Ripplefishers, Stella, those expert models for first time try honeymooners.


Me: How did you go to the Maldives?


SA: Maldives is by far the most beautiful ocean and beach in the world.  Came for my own honeymoon and vacations when I did not restart fishing yet.  Just like the nature and country there in general.  Having worked in Indian companies going there from Japan many many times, Maldives are relatively familiar locations also.  It is not that far away compared to go remote Okinawa islands, or closer than going to remote Indonesian islands like Komodo where you need to have transit over night each of the way at Bali whereas Maldives, it is just one day for 10 hours each with very smooth transit especially with Srilanka airline.


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Me: Can you tell us about your guiding service?


SA: Last 2 years, we hosted so many customers from so many countries.  We are proud that no customers including first try honeymooners came back without catching GTs.  Size is luck and technique.  Our Captain Mohamed is probably the one of the best in the world with high sense of professionalism and punctuality.  He is importantly fantastic fisherman himself so that he knows how to approach points ideal for anglers, tuned individually for his/her capability for example for average casting range etc.


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Me: What has been your personal favorite catch?


SA: Big GTs are always fun but huge sailfish and Napoleon Fish were good surprise that I got a lot of feedback from many anglers globally.  One of photo is getting published next month!


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Me: What other species do you fish for?


SA: Already mentioned earlier with some.  Red Snapper, Groupers of many kinds, Shark (once found over 200kg/4meter long gray reef shark who ate 15kg GT first hooked on lure ended hooking to the lure after eating GT!), Napoleon, Sail Fish, Trigger Fish, Blue Fin Trevally, Yellow Fin Tuna, Dog Tooth (65kg 2 weeks ago by Scandinavian customers in Lhaviyani Atoll).  Recently started Fly Fishing tours aiming for Bone Fish, that was fairly successful in February.


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Me: What tackle is needed for GT”s?


SA: Let me share my contents from my web site:

http://www.gtfishers.com/en/user_data/fishing_tackle.php


Me: When are the peak times of year for GT’s?


SA: The beauty of Maldives is there is no OFF Season for fishing.  There is no days that we cannot go fishing with our speedboat.  Historically, large slow Dhoni boats are ones doing GT fishing.  They cannot do anything in windy weather.  But we can be very high mobility and agile to go to the points behind the winds for example.  We are only one speedboat out in seas to do fishing that fishes are not so cautious.  Better to check the Tide than Seasons for Maldives.  Important to have longer period of currents with full/newmoon big tides.

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Me: What are your fishing hopes for 2014?


SA: More diversified countries anglers to try our services.  To do so, we developed and trained agents in Thailand and Mainland China that started functioning by bringing more customers.  Denmark agents are bringing Scandinavian customers now as well as German and Polish.  If Irish anglers start coming, that would be super!

Another thing is to start producing own lures and tremble hooks. We are 80% complete now.


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Me: Thanks for your time Shin


SA: No problem Paddy

 


We apologize for not updating our blog so long...  We have been fully loaded with continous chargers from customers from all over the world during our high seasons. 

Boot is our new agent in Thailand as well as Lure Builder we GT Fishers Maldives collaborates.  Boot came with his gangs a few weeks ago to Lhaviyani Atoll and scored so many large GTs while Boot also tests his GT lures, benchmarking against Carpenter Gamma! 

We have many photos in Facebook from Boot already but he has also documented his expedition in his blog for 19 pages with full of professinal quality photos.  Though it is written in Thai language, you can follow his trip with a series of photos; you can totally picture yourself being there with your gangs for GT expeditions!  The blog received over 56,000 viewers in first 2 days.  Hope everyone can enjoy that as well.

Click Here!!!  ↶↶↶ ↙↙↙
http://www.siamfishing.com/board/view.php?list=all&tid=666612&onlyuserid=0&begin=0



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Our Scandinavian Customer with family stayed at South Ari Atoll Resort and went to 3 day fishing.  He has nicely documented his expeditions so allow me to share in this community as well.  More photos from our Captain's camera will be added in facebook soon!  Sorry for the delay as we are fully booked back to back in the field operations of continuous charter...

Original Blog URL:
http://360tuna.com/index.php?%2Ftopic%2F37511-maldives-fishing-report-january-2014%2F

This year I spent my Christmas holidays in the Maldives. The Maldives consists of approximately 1,190 coral islands grouped in a double chain of 25 atolls (or 27, depending on definition), spread over roughly 90,000 square kilometer. The distance from the most southern to the most northern island is over 800 kilometers. Of the ca 1,190 islands, only 200 are inhabited. The Maldives is the world’s flattest country with the highest point measuring only a mere 2.4 meters above sea level.

 

With so many islands there are myriad of places where you can fish and there is also large variety of species that you can catch. The Maldives is a great place to combine some serious fishing with a family vacation. During my stay, I had booked three days of fishing, primarily targeting Giant Trevally (Caranx Ignobilis), more commonly referred to as GT, with GT Fishers Maldives. I was fishing from Magic Life, a 32 ft speed boat, powered by two 200 hp Yamahas. The boat is small enough to get you close to the reef and fast enough to allow you to cover a large fishing area, while at the same time maximizing the fishing time. Our Captain Mohamed and deck hand Robel made up its crew.

 

I had brought three set-ups on the trip: a PE 3-6 JM GT Monster 80 paired with a 2013 Stella 5000, a PE 6-8 Carpenter Endless Passion 88/35, paired with a 2013 Stella 14000 and a PE 8 Ripple Fisher Fantastic GT 82 Long Cast, paired with a 2008 Stella 10000. Both heavier set-ups had SOM spools, filled with JB 80lb hollow core spectra. I used 175lb and 200lb wind-on casting leaders on these set-ups so they were both knotless. I had planned to use the EP88/35 mainly for stick baits in the 70-150g range and the RF82LC for heavier stick baits and poppers in the 150-200g range. However, unfortunately I managed to break the tip on my EP88/35 in the first cast, which meant that I could not use the many lighter lures that I had brought during the three days of fishing.

 

The first day of fishing was carried out in the close proximity of our resort. My son Oscar, twelve years old, managed to catch a GT in his second cast of the day! The fish fought well but Oscar managed to succumb it after a few minutes of tug of war. He is an experienced fisherman who has caught a 150 cm halibut when he was only eight years old. The GT was around 75 cm long and in good shape. After a few quick pictures it was released to fight yet another day. Oscar was using my Jigging Master GT Monster 80 and a 2013 Stella 5000, loaded with PE5 YGK Castman solid spectra and an 80lbs wind-on casting leader from Streamline. The lure was a blue Mangrove Studio Volador 130 LS. I missed a few strikes on my Gamma 160 Diablo but was unable to set the hook before the bites slowed down. The rest of the day was slow and we only managed to catch four red snappers - all on stick baits.

 

At the beginning of the second day, I told Captain Mohamed that it was no problem if we had to travel a bit farther to get some decent GT fishing (fuel up to a daily budget of $150 is included in the price, anything above is charged). As a consequence we traveled north for some 40 minutes before starting to fish. Oscar had opted to stay home, so I was fishing alone day two and three. The red snappers were biting aggressively and I managed to catch three during the first couple of hours fishing. Half way into my three days of fishing I started to wonder if I would leave the Maldives having caught no GT. However, around noon I hooked a fish that I immediately knew was a GT and during the remainder of the day I managed to catch another three GTs and some five red snappers. All on stick baits.

 

Day three, we decided to venture north again but this time we went even further north before we started fishing and then we worked our way back towards our resort. This was the best day in terms of number of fishes caught, with eight red snappers, five GTs and one bluefin trevally. Again, all on stick baits.

 

I had numerous strikes where the fish either missed the lure or where I was unable to set the hooks properly and I lost two larger GTs due to the leader breaking on the initial run - one on a 175 lb and the other on a 200 lb leader(!) The leaders, which were made of Jinkai mono, must have been damaged in some way. However, I will most likely never use Jinkai again. The first GT managed to spit the lure - a Gamma 140 black abalone, which could be retrieved to my great joy, but the other one was not so lucky. Hopefully, it was able to get rid of the lure later. I was fishing a very heavy drag but both fishes were taking line directly after I had set the hook and felt much larger than the 111 cm, which was the largest fish that I managed to get into the boat. Captain Mohamed kept shouting: "your drag is too tight", but I just replied that I had to train for my upcoming trip to Southern Oman.

 

Another memorable moment was when a Rainbow Runner hit my black holo flyfish Strategic Angler Cruiser and did two quick runs from side to side before the hooks lost its grip.

 

The first two days the sea was pretty flat, whereas the third day the sea was a bit choppier, although nothing serious. The sun was shining bright with very few clouds, especially the first two days, and the air temperature was around 30 degrees Celsius. In total, we managed to catch 31 fish during the three days of fishing: ten GTs, one bluefin trevally and twenty red snappers, some of which were fairly sizeable.

 

We were fishing along the coral reefs and over tops at around 10-20 meters depth. Hot areas were reef edges, "pockets" in the reef and places were two currents met. The first ten to fifth teen meters of the retrieve was typically the "hot zone", accounting for some 95% of all strikes. I often got strikes on the first cast after switching fishing spot or lure. Although I had brought a fairly sizeable arsenal of poppers, I ended up using stick baits almost exclusively on the trip. I managed to catch fish on a number of different makes/brands but the best during the trip were Carpenter (Gamma GT-y 140 and Diablo 160) and Souls (Airmatic and Kanade). The best colors were different shades of blue/silver and black. I also had a lot of strikes on a white/silver 160 Gamma Diablo that I had "pimped with some black fish bones and red gills, but was only able to land one red snapper on it.

 

I was very pleased to see how carefully Captain Mohamed and the deck hand Robel handled the fish and how quickly we could return them to their proper element. I can definitely recommend GT Fishers Maldives for anyone who would like to try some fishing when visiting the Maldives. I, myself, will most likely be back already next year!

 

Below, I have inserted a few Pictures from the trip. Enjoy!

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