Madagascar

Mitsio Island

Madagascar fishing trip

GT fishing - Mitsio Island

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 have to 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 Mitsio Island.

You will reach Mitsio Island Lodge in the late afternoon. After you’ve got your room, you can chill out in the main area of the lodge with a few cold drinks. If you want, you can already fix your fishing tackle. Or you can wait until the morning. Then our guides will prepare the fishing equipment for the next few days with you.

The Fishing

The next morning, after a good breakfast, you will board the boats at around 8:00 a.m. Then it’s off to the first fishing spots. On the way to the deeper fishing spots, you can already hunt the countless bonitos with light spinning rods and sea trout spoons. These occur in large quantities off Mitsio Island and are an important part of fishing. You are at full throttle and throw the slender sea trout lures into the shoals of bonito on the surface. In doing so, you wind in the bait as quickly as possible. The lure bounces over the surface. Irresistible for the bonitos. And one thing is for sure, bonitos really go off on the light rod!

Bonitos serve as bait fish in all different ways. So when jigging, a few rods with bait are always drifted behind the boat. Often a fat GT, Marlin, Shark or Grouper eats these baits. These big fish rods are therefore an important part of fishing for Mitsio!

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 fish finder, you will continue to the next spot.

Around Mitsio there is a special water structure, which is between 30 and 80 meters deep. Ideal for predators such as GT, Kingfish, other Trevally species, sharks and groupers. But marlin and sailfish are also regularly caught in these waters!

Jigging in Madagascar

Fishing around Mitsio is first and foremost jigging! You fish at a depth of 30-80 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 is a relatively large amount of kingfish and sharks around Mitsio Island, the jig loss rate can be quite high. Therefore, you should bring at least 12-15 jigs. Jigs can be bought in the lodge’s own tackle shop!

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

Popping around Mitsio is also possible. However, the spots for popping are quite limited. There are a few smaller islands in the immediate vicinity which are suitable for popping. Here you fish with poppers and stickbaits in shallow water.

For the next five full days of fishing, you will fish for everything that has fins from Mitsio Island Lodge. Usually, you will return to the lodge around 5:00 pm.

The sixth day of fishing starts for you at the lodge and ends with your arrival in Nosy Be. You fish your way back south all day long. In the late afternoon you will arrive back in Nosy Be and check into the Sari Manok Hotel directly on the beach.

You can end the evening with a good dinner in the hotel’s own 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. In Addis Ababa you have a stopover of about four hours before you continue 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

Mitsio Island

Mitsio Tropical Lodge

Mitsio Island Lodge is a simple fishing lodge built on the island of Nosy Mitsio. The lodge has 7 simple chalets with two beds each. Each chalet has its own shower and toilet.

The main area of the lodge is located under a large mango tree and has a large dining and lounge area as well as an open kitchen. The bar is the heart of the main building. Here you can relax after a long day of fishing and enjoy a few cold drinks. These are included in the lodge!

At Mistio Island Lodge, we really care about good food. While you’re here, you’ll get breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The own tackle shop also offers you the opportunity to buy more tackle! You can find more information about Mitsio Island Lodge on our YouTube channel!

Catering

Meals: Full Board

Beverages: alcoholic & non-alcoholic beverages are included

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 rooms can be up to 300m away from the main building!

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 on site according to consumption

Your fishing boats in Madagascar!

The Boats

Mitsio Island Lodge has four Centre Console boats built in Madagascar. The boats are between 8-9 meters long and 2.8m wide. The boats are sufficiently motorized with 200hp!

Tropical Fishing Fishing Boats

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 very experienced guides.

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 telephone on board.

The boats have a sun sail that can be folded out in the midday heat. Jigging or trolling is still possible with the awning unfolded.

A cooler box with drinks is available on all boats.

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.

On the island of pain, jigging is predominant! Opportunities for popping are limited! Therefore, you should rather optimize your tackle for jigging!

You need these poppers in Madagascar!

Popper / Stickbaits

At Mitsio Island Lodge there is only a manageable number of popping spots. Popping therefore plays a subordinate role, but can be practiced by arrangement with the guides.

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

Stickbaits also work. 150-180mm versions are used here. You should bring sinking and floating stickbaits.

Bonitos play an important role in fishing in Mitsio Island. Therefore, you need 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 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 200-220lbs 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 – 6/0! For popping with smaller poppers you need 4/0 – 5/0 BKK GT-Rex.

For jigging, we recommend hooks from the VMC brand (Jigging Assist Hook 7264 BN) in sizes 11/0 – 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 plier. 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!