Madagascar

Katamaran Expedition

Madagascar fishing trip

Catamaran Expedition

Your trip starts with a flight to Addis Ababa. The flight to Addis Ababa takes about 6 hours. When you get to Addis Ababa, you will fly to Nosy Be, which will take about five hours.

You will arrive in Nosy Be around 2:35pm. To enter the country, you must fill out an entry card and pay the visa fee of 10€. After you pass through passport control, you will collect your luggage. Here’s a little tip. It is a good idea to have a few 1- and 2-euro coins ready. The porters will be grateful. After you’ve stowed your luggage, it’ll take about 40 minutes to Ambatoloaka. Then it’ll take about two hours by boat to reach your catamarans.

You will reach the catamarans in the late afternoon. After moving into the cabins, you will have time to prepare your fishing tackle for the coming days. Our guides will help you to straighten your fishing tackle. You can then end the evening with a few cold drinks and a good dinner.

The Fishing

The next morning, after a great breakfast, you will board the boats at around 7:30 am. Then it’s off to the first fishing spots.

Fishing on the catamaran expedition is a combination of popping and jigging. Depending on the conditions, you will use the appropriate fishing method. The guides have years of experience and can rely on hundreds of fishing spots stored on the chart plotter. You are therefore actively looking for the fish by driving to these hot spots. If there is no activity on the echo sounder on the spot, you continue to the next spot.

When popping, you usually fish the deep edges at the drop-off or the shallower areas of the extensive reefs. It often happens that you see large schools of baitfish on the fishing spots. You then fish these areas in a targeted manner. Often the GTs are on the road exactly in this area and can be caught with stick baits and poppers.

Jigging, Popping and other fishing techniques

When jigging, you fish at a depth of 30-150 meters. Speed and slow jigging both work very well. As jigs you need variants weighing between 150 and 250 grams. Depending on the drift and water depth, the weight of the jigs is then adjusted. Since there are relatively many kingfish and sharks, the jig loss rate can be quite high. Therefore, you should bring at least 30 jigs.

When fishing with baitfish, strong PE8-10 rods are recommended. The bait fish are then drifted behind the boat or you tow specifically for marlin and sailfish. This type of fishing has proven to be extremely productive in the past.

The fishing area offers you a variety of different water structures. From steeply sloping edges to underwater rocks and shallow reef edges to deep channels that cut into countless bays. Therefore, you have to constantly adapt to the circumstances with the fishing method and the fishing lures.

Even in Madagascar, the fish don’t jump on your hook. Therefore, you must never give up and keep going. In the end, your perseverance will be rewarded!

Flexibility during your fishing trip

Fishing is highly dependent on weather, wind and current conditions. Therefore, before your departure, our local partners will decide whether you will fish in the north or south. Under normal conditions, you will then use different anchorages with the catamarans and thus fish an extremely large stretch of coastline. As a rule, you will return to your catamarans around 17:00 on every fishing day.

The sixth day of fishing begins for you on the catamaran and ends with your arrival in Nosy Be. You will fish your way back to Nosy Be all day long. In the late afternoon, you will arrive in Nosy Be and check into the Sari Manok Hotel right on the beach.

You can end the evening with a good dinner in the hotel’s restaurant. The hotel is located in the immediate vicinity of various restaurants and bars. So if you’re still in the mood for partying, you’ve come to the right place.

The departure

The return journey begins for you after check-out from the hotel. You will leave 12:00 picked up at the hotel and taken to the airport.

The return flight to Addis Ababa leaves at 15:30. You will have a short stopover in Addis Ababa before continuing to Germany. The next morning you will reach your home airport.

Nosy Be Ausflüge

If you want to relax on Nosy Be for a few more days after fishing, then it’s best to book a few more extra days! Most of the clients stay on Nosy Be for two to three nights after fishing.

The tropical island has a lot to offer. For example, you can explore the island with quads. The supervised round trip can be booked with us in advance. The tour lasts about eight hours and leads past all the spots worth seeing on the island.

Madagascar is famous for its lemurs! You can visit them in a nature reserve. The tour to the remote island takes about six to seven hours. You paddle onto the island with dugout canoes, see the lemurs and other unique animal species and enjoy a very good, local lunch afterwards.

Both tours offer a lot of fun and are a good change from the beach. So if you want to stay a little longer on Nosy Be, you shouldn’t miss both tours!

Accommodation Madagascar fishing holidays

The Accommodation

Live Aboard

Your Catamarans

On the catamaran expedition you will be accommodated on a total of two catamarans. The catamarans have four single cabins, each with two shared toilets and showers. During your catamaran expedition you will all have your own single room.

On the upper deck there is a common room as well as a spacious terrace in the stern of the catamaran.

There are plenty of seating options. You will have meals together on one of the catamarans.

All catamarans have a power supply, which gives you the opportunity to charge your phones and cameras at certain times.

Depending on the weather conditions, the catamarans will anchor at different anchor points during your trip. This gives you the highest flexibility when fishing.

Catering

Meals: Full Board

Beverages: Drinks can be paid for on site according to consumption

Nosy Be

Sari Manok

The Sari Manok Hotel is a boutique hotel located right on the beach of Ambatoloaka. The hotel is modernly furnished and has different room categories.

The excellent Batumoch restaurant is part of the hotel and is located on the terrace on the ground floor. Here you can enjoy cold drinks and Malagasy cuisine.

A few minutes’ walk away is the party mile of Nosy Be. There are various small restaurants and bars where you can enjoy the evening.

Catering

Meals: Breakfast included

Beverages: Drinks can be paid for on site according to consumption

Your fishing boats in Madagascar!

The Boats

On your catamaran expedition in Madagascar you have two 33 foot Centre Console boats at your disposal. The boats are each equipped with 2×250 hp engines.

Nirvana Fishing Madagaskar!

Fishing Boats!

All boats have a fish finder with chart plotter. Navionics Platinum nautical charts are used as nautical charts. In total, the maps have hundreds of different fishing spots, which have been found over the years by the very experienced guide.

In addition to the fish finder, each boat has a radio and emergency equipment such as life jackets, fire extinguishers, first aid kits and a satellite phone on board.

The boats have a toilet as well as a sun canopy. A cooler box with drinks is available on all boats.

Rod holders are sufficiently available on the boats. Therefore, your rods are always in good hands.

Your Guides

Our guides are some of the most experienced fishing guides in Madagascar. The years of experience pay off again and again.

All guides and deckhands can tie FG knots blindly and will be happy to help you straighten the rigs or tie the knots for you while fishing.

You need this fishing tackle in Madagascar!

Tackle Talk

If you are going saltwater fishing for the first time, you can use rental equipment from us. Therefore, you don’t have to invest in new rods and reels in advance.

We offer a rental equipment package which includes a jigging, popping and bonito set. We will be happy to inform you of the prices separately.

The catamaran expedition uses different fishing methods. Popping and jigging are the main methods. The tackle should therefore be balanced!

You need these poppers in Madagascar!

Popper / Stickbaits

On the catamaran expedition you will pop a lot. A good selection of poppers with different plate sizes is therefore recommended. A good selection of 5-10 poppers should suffice.

In recent years, poppers such as the Blaze Garage Sraththa, Heru Cubera, ReefsEDGE or Amegari Dzanga, Craft Bait GT-3 have proven themselves very well on GT.

Stickbaits also work. 160-200mm versions are used here. You should bring sinking and floating stickbaits.

Bonitos are rarer than around Mitsio Island, but you should still pack a few small 40-60g sea trout lures in a slim shape.

You need these jigs in Madagascar!

Jigs

For jigging in Madagascar you need a good selection of 150-250g jigs. In recent years, butterfly shapes as well as elongated, but not too narrow shapes have proven to be very good. Jigs from Major Craft (Jigpara), Sakura Orion Jigs as well as our Team Deep Sea Pelajig V2 and RockShock were very successful here. But also jigs from low-cost providers like AliExpress or Temu have caught 🙂

Colors that work very well are pink, silver, blue-green, orange and zebra patterns. It is important that all assist hooks are equipped with an octopus! This not only increases the attraction, but also the hook rate.

The hook size should be between 8/0 – 12/0. Depending on the jig shape and jig size, you should adjust the hooks. As an assist leader, we recommend min. 1.4mm Kevlar or min. 600lbs load capacity!

The best lines and leaders for GT fishing

Leader & Main Line

For popping, leaders between 220-240lbs are used. Here you should make sure that these are quality leaders such as those from Fishermen, Varivas, Nomad or Climax.

When jigging, you need a leader of 175lbs. The diameter can vary. However, we recommend a diameter of less than 1.0mm.

The main lines should be high performance PE lines. A PE8 (80lbs) is the minimum. If you fish with stronger rods, you can also go for PE10 (100lbs) here. For jigging, we recommend PE6-8 (65-80lbs)! The line for bonitos should be at least 0.22mm. Thinner lines are recommended, as they allow you to cast further.

Good lines are e.g. Gosen Diver x8, Daiwa J-Braid x8, JB Line One or other high-performance lines!

Terminal Tackle

Hooks & Terminal Tackle

No compromises can be made here. Please only bring hooks of the BKK brand. Here you should bring the GT-Rex hooks in sizes 5/0 – 7/0! For popping with smaller poppers you need 4/0 – 5/0 BKK GT-Rex.

For jigging, we recommend hooks of the brand VMC (Jigging Assist Hook 7264 BN) in sizes 8/0 – 13/0. For the assist hooks you should bring rubber octopuses!

Split and solidrings for popping should have at least 220lbs load capacity. Owner Super-Heavy-Duty Split Rings (Solidrings #7.5 – #9) (Split Rings #10 – #11) are a good choice here.

Helpful tools for your fishing trip

Other fishing equipment

In general, it is advisable to bring a good split ring plier. Here we can recommend the hPa Game Plier split ring pliers. This allows you to open super strong split rings without any problems.

A good, waterproof boat bag is also recommended. The company Zeck Fishing has a few good bags on offer. We recommend the Tackle Container Pro or the Tackle Container Pro Catfish!

Since you are often jigging for several hours at a time, we recommend that you bring a pair of good gloves with you.

Since it can get very warm in Madagascar, we recommend UV protection shirts, a sun hat and LF50 sunscreen! You can order our Expeditions UV shirts directly from us!

Good polarized sunglasses are essential for fishing. We recommend glasses from gloryfy unbreakable. The best polarized sunglasses for anglers currently available are also indestructible!

You can take a closer look at the gloryfy unbreakable polarized sunglasses for anglers here: Polarized Sunglasses for Anglers!