Diego Garcia Trip Half-Way Home Report

#1
Hello PFIC crew,

Hope all is well!

So, I’ve been out here in Diego Garcia for almost 3 months now and wanted to share the fishing news and some photos with you guys.

The fishing has been okay here but not great like in years past. I fear that the area is becoming over fished by the people on the island and by the ships that are here in the lagoon. I no longer see the schools of skipjack swimming around the ship in the evenings. The trevally make an appearance every so often. The bottom fish( snapper and grouper) being caught are way too small. This is British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) and there are some fishing restrictions in place. For example, wire leaders are illegal out here. No intentional catching of sharks. No more than 2 hooks per line, etc. I seriously doubt the fishing restrictions here are being regulated by the BIOT police on the island. They are too busy doing, well from my observations, absolutely nothing. Very sad.

On the weekends, we take on people from the island who want to fish on our stern. Per the captain’s policy, myself and other watchstanders strictly enforce the release of smaller fish being caught from our ship.

Anyways, I took a chartered fishing trips a few weeks back. We trolled for 4 hours and landed 2 wahoos and lost 2 other wahoos. I was using 165mm Nomad DTX minnows. They are excellent jigs for wahoo!! I had to order more on TackleDirect.com as they ship to the FPO addresses out here. It takes about 3 weeks to get mail out here from the States. I also purchased a Shimano Type J Slow jigging rod and Shimano Saragosa SW 18000HG spinning reel to pair with it. I have my reel spooled with 80# PowerPro and using a 60# fluoro leader. It is definitely not strong enough to battle some of the fish I’ve hooked onto here in the lagoon. I have recently bumped up to using an 80# mono leader on my jigging setup. My favorite jigs to use in the lagoon are 40g and 60g majorcraft jigparas! No luck with colt snipers, bucktails, poppers. I have yet to try the Shimano butterfly and wing jigs I also purchased.

When we go out to sea for ship exercises, we troll at 6-8 knots using paracord hand lines and various jigs.

I’ve caught a few exotic fish from the lagoon here, but there are a TON of sharks here so that makes fishing difficult most of the time. The taxman (bull shark) has cost me about a half dozen jigparas already.

Here are some photos, take care guys and hope you’ve been able to get some fishing in this summer.

-Anthony
 

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evanluck

Well-Known Member
#6
Miss fishing with you here in Southern California but great to see you doing such exciting fishing in/around Diego Garcia! Safe trip and see you when you get back!