Flying fish is one of the best baits for fishing in the sea off our island, Fuvahmulah. Also, during the monsoon season, thousands of flying fish glide towards the island, causing a flying fish fiesta.
Even when the southwest monsoon is not in effect, flying fish inhabit the vast ocean surrounding the enigmatic island of Maldives. We use this fish to catch some of the ocean’s most powerful and fast-moving fish, including giant trevally, wahoo, yellowfin tuna, and even sailfish.
When it wasn’t monsoon season, our island’s fishermen went out into the open sea first to catch these gliding fish. Before heading out to sea, they will gather young coconuts and beach hermit crabs. They collected young coconuts to extract their meat, which they then used as bait for the hermit crabs.
They would use small fishing rods that were approximately 3 to 4 feet in length. They attached the rod’s tip with approximately 20 pounds of monofilament line. Prior to the introduction of monofilament, our fishermen used nanu, a sea hibiscus bark-based fishing line.
When using nanu, the fishermen would deploy it approximately 40 meters from the bokkura, a small fishing vessel. They would tie normal hooks ranging in size from 15 to 16. On the hook, they would pull out some hermit crab and coconut meat and then let it go.
When they used monofilament lines with the rod, the hooks maintained the same size. They would simply remain on the bokkura off the coast beyond the drop-off and catch flying fish. They typically caught 50 to 100 flying fish in a single day.
When they had caught enough flying fish, they would simply row their bokkura further out into the open sea, where they would deploy fishing line weighing approximately 150 pounds to catch yellowfin tuna and other fish species.
Normally, they use flying fish to catch yellowfin tuna, wahoo, sailfish, and tuna. However, they also use the bait to capture reef fish at night, including groupers and kattelhi fish. Kattelhi fish (Promethichthys Prometheus) were also caught using flying fish. They would remove or cut the flying fish to use as bait for catching kattelhi fish.
