Two fishing programmes with opposite outcomes for the fish, and a complimentary excursion that quietly makes you choose between fishing and the mantas.
Written by the HolidayVibe Maldives team in Male, reviewed by Abdulla Maseeh · Updated September 2026
Milaidhoo runs big game fishing under a stated catch-and-release policy, handline trolling, traditional handline from a classic dhoni, and pole-and-line fishing alongside a local fisherman. Named targets include wahoo, sailfish, swordfish, giant trevally and marlin.
Two things shape the booking. First, the big game programme is catch and release, so nothing you land on that boat becomes dinner, while the pole-and-line trip keeps its fish. Second, the complimentary group excursion is one of three: manta trip, dolphin cruise, or sunset fishing. Take the fishing and you’ve given up Hanifaru.
This is the part nobody tells you, and it’s on Milaidhoo’s own site if you read carefully.
Each guest gets one complimentary group excursion. The options are a manta trip, a dolphin cruise, or the sunset fishing. Not all three. One.
Now consider where you are. Milaidhoo sits in Baa Atoll, a short ride from Hanifaru Bay, which holds the largest reef manta aggregation anywhere on earth during the season. If you’re there between roughly June and November and you use your one excursion on the fishing, you have traded the single best marine wildlife encounter in the Maldives for a sunset with a handline.
Decide this before you arrive, not at the excursions desk. If you want both the fishing and Hanifaru, expect the second one to be chargeable. Ask what a private or additional trip involves at the time of booking, while the schedule is still open and the answer can still go your way.
Outside manta season the calculus flips entirely and the fishing is the obvious pick. It’s genuinely a seasonal decision rather than a preference, and our Baa Atoll fishing guide covers how the reserve’s calendar interacts with the fishing year.
Milaidhoo runs big game fishing under a stated catch-and-release policy. It also runs pole-and-line fishing where the fish are kept. Both are presented as responsible, and both genuinely are, but they rest on completely different reasoning and it’s worth understanding which trip you’ve booked.
The big game targets are the problem species. Sailfish, marlin, swordfish and giant trevally are slow-growing apex predators, and a resort releasing them is making a defensible call about fish that take years to replace.
Pole and line is a different argument, and Milaidhoo makes it in their own words: catching fish one at a time is the best way to avoid catching protected species, which is what makes the technique sustainable. A long pole, a short fixed line, one fish at a time, no nets and effectively no bycatch. That’s the method the entire Maldivian commercial tuna fishery runs on, and it’s why Maldivian skipjack is treated differently from industrially netted tuna.
Put simply: on the big game boat, everything goes back. On the pole-and-line trip, you’re fishing the way the country actually feeds itself, and the catch is food. If eating what you catch matters to you, book the second one.
| Resort | What happens to your catch |
|---|---|
| Milaidhoo | Big game is catch and release. Pole and line keeps the fish |
| Finolhu | Keep up to a quota set by the marine biologist, release above it |
| Hurawalhi | Limited numbers kept, and everything kept goes to the resort kitchens |
| Kuredu | Kept and cooked to order |
| Komandoo | Kept, on a traditional Maldivian trip |
Nobody expects that question to have five different answers, which is exactly why it’s worth asking before choosing a resort rather than after. Our fishing resort comparison has the full list.
| Format | Method | Catch | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big game | Trolling from a dedicated boat | Catch and release | Anglers chasing sailfish, marlin and giant trevally |
| Handline trolling | Line held bare in the hands behind a moving boat | Varies by trip | Anyone wanting the most direct connection to the fish |
| Traditional handline | From a classic dhoni, weighted line over reef ground | Kept | Beginners, couples, a first go |
| Pole and line | Long pole and short fixed line, with a local fisherman | Kept | Anyone curious about how the country actually fishes |
Handline trolling deserves a word, because it’s the one people underestimate. The line runs bare through your fingers behind a moving boat. There’s no rod flexing to absorb the strike and no drag washer slipping to protect you. When something takes it, the whole force arrives in your hands at once. Anglers who’ve only fished with a rod tend to find the first one genuinely shocking, since absorbing exactly that shock is what a rod exists to do.
It also happens to be the technique Finolhu calls Baraa trolling, further north in the same atoll. Two resorts, the same Maldivian method, and almost nothing written about it in English.
The big game season favours the north east monsoon, November to March, when wahoo and sailfish run strongest and the seas are calmest. Reef and handline fishing runs all year, so the dhoni trips hold up through the rougher south west monsoon.
Which sets up the awkward bit. Hanifaru’s manta aggregation peaks in the south west monsoon, roughly June to November, exactly when the big game fishing is at its weakest. So the season that makes you choose between fishing and mantas is also the season where that choice is easiest. Come in January and the fishing is better and the mantas have gone. Our Maldives fishing season calendar maps the year properly.
One rule that bears on this page: fishing is prohibited inside the reserve’s core zones, Hanifaru Bay among them, so trips work the water outside those boundaries. Under the Fisheries Act 14/2019 the licence sits with the boat and its captain rather than with you, so no personal permit is needed. The rest is on our Maldives fishing regulations guide.
Milaidhoo is small, quiet and expensive, with 50 villas and a deliberately unhurried feel. That suits a certain kind of fishing trip and not another. If you’re planning to fish hard for four days and compare notes over a beer afterwards, it’s the wrong island. If what you’re after is one serious big game morning, a pole-and-line trip that teaches you something, and a very good dinner, it’s close to ideal.
We don’t publish rates, and typical costs for trips of this shape are on our Maldives fishing cost guide. For a livelier island in the same atoll, Finolhu runs four fishing formats and a very different evening.
Milaidhoo gives each guest one complimentary group excursion chosen from three, and the fishing is one of the three. In manta season that means taking the sunset trip costs you Hanifaru, which is a decision worth making before you arrive rather than at the excursions desk on day one.
We will tell you what adding the second trip involves while the schedule is still open, and make sure you have booked the fishing you actually meant. The big game boat runs catch and release, so nothing you land there becomes dinner, while the pole and line trip keeps its fish. Those are very different days out, and the names on the excursion sheet do not make that obvious.
Ministry of Tourism licence MOT.O1.RS.TA.25.RD9933, worked from Male on Maldives time.
Written, itemised quotes. Free to prepare. Nothing booked until you confirm.
It depends entirely on which trip you book. The big game programme operates under a stated catch-and-release policy, so nothing landed on that boat is kept. The pole-and-line and traditional handline trips do keep their catch. If eating what you catch matters to you, book one of the latter and confirm it when you reserve, because the two programmes give genuinely opposite outcomes.
One group excursion is complimentary, but you choose it from three options: a manta trip, a dolphin cruise, or the sunset fishing. Only one. So the fishing is included only if you spend your one choice on it, which in manta season means giving up Hanifaru. Ask about adding a second trip when you book rather than on arrival.
Four formats. Big game fishing under catch and release, handline trolling, traditional handline fishing from a classic dhoni, and pole-and-line fishing alongside a local fisherman. Named targets include wahoo, sailfish, swordfish, giant trevally and marlin, with reef species on the handline trips.
Because the two target completely different fish. Sailfish, marlin and giant trevally are slow-growing apex predators that take years to replace, so releasing them is a defensible call. Pole and line targets abundant species one fish at a time with no nets and effectively no bycatch, which is the resort’s own stated reason for regarding it as sustainable. Both positions are coherent; they just apply to different fish.
A line run behind a moving boat and held bare in your hands, with no rod and no reel. The strike arrives straight through your fingers with nothing to absorb it, which is a very different sensation from rod fishing. It’s a traditional Maldivian method, and Finolhu further north in Baa Atoll offers the same thing under its Dhivehi name, Baraa trolling.
No. Hanifaru Bay is a core zone of the Baa Atoll UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and fishing is prohibited inside it. Trips work the wide water outside the reserve’s core boundaries, which is most of the atoll, so in practice it shapes the route rather than the day. The manta aggregation there runs roughly June to November.
November to March for big game, on the north east monsoon, when wahoo and sailfish run strongest and the seas are calmest. Reef and handline fishing runs all year. There’s a useful accident of timing here: the big game season is at its best when the mantas have gone, so a January trip removes the choice between fishing and Hanifaru entirely.
Finolhu if you want format choice and to keep some of your catch, since it runs four formats and allows a marine-biologist quota before releasing. Milaidhoo if you want a small quiet island and are content to release your big game fish. Finolhu is a livelier island with a 1.8 kilometre sandbank; Milaidhoo has 50 villas and a deliberately unhurried pace.
Fishing claims here come from Milaidhoo’s own published material, checked on 1 September 2026: its fishing page, its excursions listing and its own description of why pole and line is sustainable. Milaidhoo publishes no trip durations, no catch limits and no prices, and we’ve said so rather than filling the gaps.
Reviewed by Abdulla Maseeh for HolidayVibe Maldives, Ministry of Tourism licence MOT.O1.RS.TA.25.RD9933.
HolidayVibe Maldives is not affiliated with or sponsored by Milaidhoo Maldives. The images on this page illustrate Maldivian fishing methods and are not photographs of the resort.
The reserve boundaries, the independent boats, and how the Baa resorts compare.
Four formats, Baraa trolling, and a catch quota set by a marine biologist.
Tackle, technique and what trolling the outer drop-off really involves.
The methods, the seasons and where each one works best across the country.
Tell us your dates and whether you want to keep what you catch, and we’ll come back with a written, itemised quote covering the room, the transfer and the right trips, with the excursion choice sorted in advance.