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.
