The southern Oman 2023/24 season has just come to an end for our friends at Ocean Active. Here’s the 2024 roundup on what has been a great season, with plenty of permit.
That’s the 19th Omani season done and dusted for Ocean Active. Hard to believe when we started as the first small fly and topwater operation back in 2005, not knowing if anyone would come and fish a totally unknown fishery in the Middle East to where we are now, a world leading permit, GT and tuna destination. Super proud!
We have had another amazing season in southern Oman and Salalah, seems each season is getting better and better as we develop plans, ideas and techniques. Every guest fishing with us landing at least one permit, there aren’t many destinations that can boast that!
It started with a bang with one of the OAF guides, Greg Maxwell, arriving into Dubai late summer, landing a cracking golden and then heading down to southern Oman to acclimatise and prepare for the season ahead. He promptly landed his first Africanus, a great way to settle the nerves. Then followed a few of the OAF team jumping on the bandwagon landing several Africanus early season before we started it officially for clients.
Some of the southern Oman 2024 season highlights
It all got off to a running start with our first client Cristián Rodríguez Oro from Fly Fishing the Run coming to Salalah to try complete his “Four of a Kind” slam after travelling 60,000 miles and a 15 year journey from his first permit. No easy feat but a bit of luck on the first day and Cristian completed the deal with his first Africanus, followed by a great celebration, and then the gates opened and several more Africanus were landed in the following days to finish off the slam in style!
Next highlight was having Mohammed Al Faour and Brenton Sharp part of the OAF family and they hit it right, with a great trip. The trip was set up after Mo guided Greg to his golden trevally off Dubai so there was a bit of pressure on Greg to repay the compliment!
The trip started off on a high note and stayed that way throughout, the team landed about 16 permit, monster queens and a bunch of other species. Safe to say Greg paid back his golden in Dubai debt and gave us all a lesson in tactics to boot!
Regular client, Yury with his friend Alex joined us next for another trip and the fireworks continued with wall to wall permit as well as a load of mahi caught for the trip. The team landed about 20 permit and a lot of the days were called early just to go back to the hotel and chill! It really was a crazy season at times with the number of permit landed.
Before this becomes a novel, the last trip we want to mention was AJ ‘The Uncle’ Pretorious and Werner Roosenboom. Two very old friends who’ve been around the block with us multiple times from day one. A plan has been hatching over the last while to do inshore permit and offshore yellowfin tuna. We started calling it the ‘yellowfin challenge’, one day fish inshore and then one day fish offshore. The plan was set and flights booked and the boys arrived in Salalah to meet up with Greg and do the tackle set up and get the trip started.
AJ and Werner landed their first Africanus and then the chaos started offshore with some monster YFT. Spinning gear was chosen this time as there were a lot of big fish around and the guys got beat up pretty bad with bruises, broken Stella reels and a lot of sore muscles and bones. Great fun and next season will be a chance to do this on fly (given a run of suitable fish), a good option for guests wanting to mix up inshore and offshore, or groups with friends wanting to mix things up!
2024/25 Plans
The plans for next season are already underway and in full swing. We have started building two new custom 27ft fly skiffs. We’re really excited with Blochii, the one destined for southern Oman as it will open the opportunity for us to accommodate groups and hosted trips up to six guests.
We have a new guide joining that will allow the team in Salalah to explore some new fisheries and rediscover old areas up and down the coast. We did a lot of this in the early days but we have been wanting to explore further afield and, more importantly, be able to provide a variety of environments and options for our clients in the future.
If this southern Oman 2024 season roundup has caught your interest please do get in touch. There are still some great tides and slots available. For further information or to book a fishing holiday in Oman please contact Charlotte Chilcott or call the office on +44(0)1980 847389.