Shores of Mangaf - Kuwait

This is the first site I have looked at for fly fishing in Kuwait.  Access to the beach is via a alley cut through at N29 05.670 E48 08.254 near a lay-by for taxis/buses. The Sea Club is on the right of the picture (south end of the beach).  I took the picture at low tide to discover underwater obstacles that would disappear as the tide came in.  The picture was taken from a concrete platform in front of the building shown below.

The building has now been demolished and currently (Oct 2014) is the pile of twisted metal and rubble shown below.

The platform affords casting possibilities into the rising waters either side of the bollard above the word "Sea" in the first image, depending on the wind direction.  The sand on the beach itself south of the platform is quite steep above the water line, so casting directly out from the water's edge becomes problematic.
When I did try fishing from the platform the first cast  produced this Sind Half-Beak which was returned to the water.

This was caught on an orange floating fry with a flying treble.  Another Half-Beak was hooked later on in the afternoon as high tide was due at 5pm.  Sunset was to follow fairly closely and as I watched the beach from a nearby apartment as night fell, I noticed divers with tridents and lights entering the water to spear larger fish.  This may explain the paucity of the fishing during the day.  A couple of small Houndfish did launch attacks on the flies, so maybe there is hope yet of something larger.

Today (7-10-14) I caught this Sind halfbeak near the large hulk (Hamek) of an old ferry opposite the demolished building beside the Sea Club premises.

The fly was a red booby with its white polystyrene eyes. 

On Friday 3-10-14 off the beach between these points, I caught a small queen fish on a white streamer fly. 

 

Saltwater Flies and Lures

The images on this post show the selection of flies and lures I have used in the Arabian Gulf.

They have each performed with varying degrees of success, though by far the most successful in terms of numbers of fish, are the orange trout poppers followed by the white floating fry (of which I have none of the originals left).  The white fry shown tried to combine the qualities of the red and white poppers and fry and worked well until the flying treble was lost along with most of the tail to a toothy critter.  In the pictures, the more successful a fly has been, the less legs it has remaining attached.  The attachment of a flying treble also seems to improve the rate of hook-ups and this I attribute to the hardness of many of the fish species' mouth areas.

I have used bit detectors to construct my own popper variants as often it is difficult to get the appropriate materials in UAE, Qatar or Kuwait.  Fore example, I was unable to get olive wool for the Arno's Milky Dream fly so used some chartreuse material and white marabou and, at the time, had no internet access, so had to go off a verbal description of the fly scribbled on a piece of hotel note paper.

Some trout poppers ended up being so chewed up they disintegrated.  The one mentioned in the picture is the last of the three originally purchased.

Some of the flies are sea trout trebles and salmon doubles which are too heavy to cast from the shore or while wading with my 9'  rod with 8 wt line, and so are used  trailing from a boat, or flicked into deep water from a pier and allowed to sink and drift before being retrieved.

UAE flyfishing - Abu Dhabi Emirate

I did find out some useful information when staying at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Abu Dhabi from the concierge.  A fishing licence was require from the environment agency (100 dirhams) which was obtained easily.  Secondly, Milkfish could be caught using Arno's Milky Dream fly at a location south of Abu Dhabi island.

Mark trying his luck at Al Dabbiya

I researched the fly and made up a couple before setting off to find the spot.  As myself and Mark (the car owner) approached the area signs and fencing warned off further attempts to access it near to N24 14.594 E54 17.525 area.  I can only assume those willing to access cared nothing for the consequences of being caught or we were given spurious directions so we couldn't catch the fish.

 

Anyway, we returned to the main Qatar Abu Dhabi road, and headed to Al Dabbiya.  Again, apart fro access to the water between buildings in the village, all other parts were fenced off and patrolled by the national oil company and police.
Mark went spinning and I tried the fly and again caught more needlefish.  The water's edge in the village was rocky and full of obstacles.  The Milkfish remained like the fly's name - a dream.  However, it's not one that's forgotten yet.  They are in the Gulf somewhere.

Read about the Milkfish and Arno Matthee at this link - http://www.fieldsportsmagazine.com/Saltwater-Fishing/milkfish-mayhem.html

Al Gharriya, NE Qatar

Al Gharriya, NE Qatar.
N26 04.366 E51 21.544

Again,  this beach had easy access from the road and was 90 km north of Doha.  The journey takes about an hour but the main road goes to 2 way and is quite bumpy towards the end.  I managed to take my eye off the road for a brief moment and lost a wheel to a hole in the road.  That said, the beach is an extension of the sand on the land and plenty of wading is possible.

On the whole from 2004 -2009 when in Qatar, I observed that boat fishing is done by those with boats or who can afford to hire one.  The majority of the labourers who fish seem to use a fixed spool reel from a harbour or other raised point such as a pier.  Others in the last year I was there took to buying a 25 or 50m net with a depth of 1m floats on the top, walk out and mop up large  areas of anything that wouldn't fit through the holes.  That was the end of the "happy time" for fishing in Simaisima for me.  That final year saw me catch only 1 fish (a 5cm long needlefish) there after October 2008.  Prior to that I had averaged 10-20 fish per Friday morning session (7am-1130am).

What there was also at Al Gharriya was a large population of stingrays, which would glide pass my feet as I waded and fished the upper water column.  There area is usually very quiet, apart from a the noise of quad bikes from a resort 1km away when holidays occur.  The fish present for fly sport are half-beaks and needlefish in the main.

Simaisima, Qatar

This is a sunrise on the Arabian Gulf - The Khaleej - at Simaisima in Qatar.
N25 34.708 E51 29.302

Here there are sandy mud flats that stretch far from the shore near to the most northerly mangroves in the Gulf.  The area is eminently wade-able, with easy access from the beach or fishing boat pier.  It is about 20mins by car from Doha.
This was where I first decided to start fly fishing in tropical waters, having previously only done fly fishing in the freshwater rivers and lakes of the UK.  I had being doing conventional sea fishing with fixed spool reel from the piers and multiplier reel from boats in Qatar.  I had worked on a successful technique of  dragging a popping float through the surface with a trailing set of white flies with a 10g weight as I became fed up with cuttlefish stealing the bait from the hooks.  Prawns were becoming more expensive too so a technique without bait as just what I needed.
Needlefish, rainbow runners/Queenfish, sea bass, and others were all jumping onto my trolled flies. It was then that I realised if I could ditch all of the boxes of equipment and weights I was carrying, put on some dive boots, I could wander away from the crowed piers (where personal space was being ignored by the fishermen from less developed parts of the world) and into the sea itself.
That summer during my annual vacation back to England I purchased an Orvis 6-piece travel rod, saltwater reel and line plus a selection of trout poppers (that weren't legal for use in the lakes of NE England, but on sale in the tackle shops beside them) that looked like they would have enough colour and bouyancy to cope with the bright light of the Khaleej.

A fluorescent orange popper with orange and black stripe rubber legs caught this needlefish on the 2nd cast at Simaisima in September 2006.  From then on I spent Friday mornings wading in the sandy shallow waters up the top of my thighs following the tide up the gently shelving beaches.  I found that if I stayed at that depth of water I would be casting into the packs of predatory fish chasing the fry on shore.
Apart from the two-banded needlefish (houndfish), there were Sind half-beaks, yellow hind, banded grunters, fasker and other sea bass that found a fluorescent orange popper or a white floating fry imitation irresistible.
On some occasions I would venture (carefully) towards the trench cut into the limestone bedrock to allow deeper draught boats into the pier at Simaisima. It is a deep cut so I kept about 5m from the edge and did catch some large fish out of the hole.  However, there were other creatures in there such as turtles and large barracuda and sharks.  On several occasions I did lose the body or the whole fish to an attack during playing a fish to a dark torpedo appearing from within the trench.
The longest fish hooked on the fly in Qatar were the 1m long needlefish known as "Long Toms" which are a little unnerving when in the water playing them.   I generally tried to back towards the shore or pier to finish off landing them as their beaks are too sharp to have near your face!
A flying treble is handy on a lure here, as the mouths of some of the fish are very hard and bony and a single hook (especially a barbless one) is unlikely to find or maintain purchase.