Seasonal · 6 minute read
Book October if you want a boat at all on a weekend, and January if you want the best fishing. Dubai's season runs October to May, kingfish and cobia arrive as the water cools through November, and January and February are the strongest months. October fishes well enough and is far easier to get a Saturday on.
Published
The water off Dubai cools slowly through autumn and that cooling is what turns the fishing on. October is the transition: the near grounds fish steadily for queenfish and trevally, the water is still warm, and the wrecks are starting to hold kingfish.
November and December improve week by week. January and February are the peak — kingfish and cobia on the offshore wrecks, and the most consistent bags of the year. March and April stay good and get warmer. By May it is tailing off, and June through September is slow enough that we only recommend a short sunrise trip.
Availability. A Saturday in October can be booked a week ahead; the same Saturday in January needs three weeks, and the good skippers go first. If your date is fixed — a visiting friend, a birthday, a company trip — October removes the risk entirely.
Conditions are also gentler. October seas are typically calmer than midwinter, which matters if anyone in the party is new to offshore fishing. A rough January trip that produces two kingfish and three seasick people is not the better day.
Fish. January and February genuinely produce more and bigger, and if the point of the trip is the catch rather than the day out, the difference is real rather than marginal.
The eight-hour trip is also worth more in peak season. At AED 3,400 it reaches the offshore wrecks and drop-offs, and in January those hold fish in a way they do not in October. In autumn the four-hour trip at AED 1,800 gets you most of what is available.
Departure is 05:30 to 06:00 in every month of the season, and it is not negotiable arbitrariness. Fish feed at first light, and the wind off this coast typically gets up mid-morning, so a trip that leaves at nine spends its best hours travelling and its worst hours in chop.
Rods, reels, bait, ice and crew are aboard. Bring a hat, sunscreen, closed shoes and something to carry fish home in. Take a seasickness tablet an hour before boarding if you are unsure — offshore is nothing like the Marina.
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