Most fishing trips booked in the Maldives fall into one of a handful of techniques, each suited to different species and different stretches of water. This guide explains what each one involves and what you're likely to be fishing for.
Trolling
Trolling means running lines with lures or bait behind a moving boat, typically along the edges of an atoll or a reef drop-off where pelagic fish pass by. It's the standard technique for wahoo — among the fastest fish in the ocean, capable of speeds up to 80 km/h — and is also used for yellowfin tuna and mahi-mahi, which are often found near floating debris.
Jigging
Jigging works a weighted metal lure vertically near the bottom, over deep reef slopes and drop-offs rather than the open water trolling covers. It's the method most associated with dogtooth tuna, a solitary, hard-fighting predator that lives on exactly this kind of structure.
Popping
Popping casts a surface lure toward reef edges and channels and retrieves it in sharp, splashing bursts to draw a strike from the surface rather than the depths. It's the technique most closely tied to giant trevally, which the Maldives is internationally rated among the best destinations to target.
Handline and bottom fishing
Handline fishing — a reel, line, hook and bait, worked by hand rather than cast and retrieved — is the traditional, lowest-barrier technique, commonly offered as an introductory sunset trip and requiring no prior experience. It's also the basis of the Maldives' historic pole-and-line skipjack tuna industry. Bottom fishing, a closely related technique fished at anchor over reef structure, is the usual way to target groupers and snappers.
Choosing a technique
If you want an easy, sociable first trip, a handline or sunset trip needs no experience. If you're after a specific trophy species, the technique follows the fish: trolling for wahoo and tuna, jigging for dogtooth tuna, popping for giant trevally. Maldives Fishing and Holiday Pvt Ltd's private charters out of Maamendhoo cover trolling and bottom fishing aboard "Emperor" — see our full-day charter page, or browse the full fish species guide for more on what you might catch.