Pole and line fishing has been practised for nearly 1,000 years in the Maldives, yet the daily reality of the men who sustain this tradition remains almost invisible to visitors.
Most people encounter the Maldives from a water villa or a dive boat. What they do not see is the fleet of wooden dhonis that leaves harbour before dawn, crewed by men who have been reading the ocean’s surface for generations. The question this article explores is straightforward: what does the working life of a Maldivian pole-and-line fisherman actually look like, and what does it reveal about a culture shaped by the sea? For travellers curious about life beyond the resort perimeter, and for anyone interested in one of the world’s most sustainable fisheries, the answer matters far beyond the catch statistics.
The traditions of Maldivian fishermen are both older than the tourism industry and more fragile than the postcards suggest. Pole-and-line skipjack fishing is certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council, with bycatch as low as 0.65% — but climate breakdown and industrial overfishing are pushing these crews farther from shore, testing a way of life that has held steady for centuries.
| Fishing Method | Bycatch Rate | Sustainability Certification | Vessel Size & Range | Tradition in Maldives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pole and line (Maldives skipjack) | 0.65% | Marine Stewardship Council certified | Dhoni, ~24 m, returns daily | Nearly 1,000 years |
| Longline | ~28% average | Varies by fishery | Industrial, weeks at sea | Not traditional |
| Purse seine | Moderate to high, species-dependent | Some MSC-certified fisheries exist | Large industrial vessels | Limited adoption |
Each method produces radically different outcomes for marine ecosystems and crew livelihoods. The pole-and-line approach, known locally as kandu kukulhu, is the one that has defined Maldivian fishing culture — and the one now facing its greatest test.
Before Dawn on the Mas Vaali
The dhoni Mas Vaali leaves Kanditheemu harbour at 3:04 am. Breakfast is skipped. The crew of a 24-metre wooden vessel knows the routine: six days a week, sixteen hours at sea, one goal. The sequence that follows has been refined over generations, and it follows a precise order.
Crews set nets and use lamps to lure sprats — roughly 200 kg — from offshore waters. When bait is scarce, snorkellers may spend up to 10 hours herding the fish by hand. This is the most critical step; without live bait, the pole-and-line method cannot function.
The live bait is thrown overboard to create a feeding frenzy. Skipjack tuna rise to the surface, and the crew begins to fish with single poles and barbless hooks — one fish at a time.
Each session lasts about 75 minutes and can yield roughly 2.5 tonnes of skipjack. A good day may total 4.5 tonnes. The fish are landed, iced aboard the dhoni, and later transported to distribution centres every two to three days.
This rhythm has not changed in decades. What has changed is the distance crews must travel. Coral bleaching, ocean heating, and shifting monsoon patterns — combined with industrial purse-seine fleets that operate beyond Maldivian waters — have reduced baitfish and tuna in traditional fishing grounds. A 2017 study in PLOS ONE documented the scale of bycatch from less selective gear, underlining what Maldivian fishermen already knew: their method is an outlier in a global industry that often prioritises volume over precision.
A Fisher’s Share
The economics of pole-and-line fishing rest on a simple profit-sharing system. After fuel and other expenses are deducted, the revenue splits three ways: one share goes to the dhoni owner, and two shares are divided among the crew. Captain Ibrahim Hamid, who skippers the Mas Vaali, earns between 15,000 and 20,000 rufiyaa per month (roughly 975–1,300 USD). A successful week can bring about 8,000 rufiyaa. That income depends entirely on the health of the skipjack stock — and on the Marine Stewardship Council certification that keeps Maldivian tuna competitive in European and North American markets, where more than 50,000 tonnes are exported annually.
This is not a system designed for maximum extraction. It is built around a simple premise: if the fish disappear, so does the livelihood. The same logic underlies the cultural importance of tuna in Maldivian cuisine, most visibly in the island tradition of smoked tuna, a preserved staple that connects the catch directly to the table.
An Eye on the Water: The Documentary That Changed the Frame
In 2026, a short documentary called Maldivian Fishermen won a Silver A’ Design Award in the Movie, Video and Animation Design category. Directed by Aishath Naajila — a self-taught cinematographer from the Maldives who began her practice at sixteen — the film was shot over eight days in March 2020 aboard a traditional dhoni, during the COVID-19 lockdown. Naajila used a Sony A7 III with three prime lenses, a DJI Phantom 4 for aerial footage, and a GoPro for freediving sequences. The crew filmed before dawn and at midnight to capture the ocean’s food chain in motion. The result is not a nature documentary. It is a portrait of resilience, shot from within the working day of men who rarely appear in tourism marketing.
The film is part of Two Thousand Isles, a broader visual storytelling project that documents the diverse cultures and communities across the Maldives. For visitors who want to engage with this world beyond the resort, cultural tours that include visits to fishing islands offer a rare window into the daily reality behind the award-winning footage.
A quick heads up — some links here are affiliate links. If you buy through them, it costs you nothing extra but earns IslandHopperGuides a small commission. Honestly, that’s a big part of what funds the travel and research that goes into guides like this one. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases — and I really do appreciate the support.
One such option is a Cultural Tour of the Maldives, which can include stops at working fishing communities where the pole-and-line tradition is still the centre of daily life.
The Weight of Change
No account of Maldivian fishing traditions is complete without addressing what threatens them. The same ocean that sustains the skipjack stock is warming, acidifying, and being emptied by fleets that do not share the Maldives’ commitment to one-by-one fishing. A report on the economic impacts of climate change on the Maldives fisheries industry documents the decline in baitfish availability and the increased fuel costs of longer voyages. Bait collection, once a straightforward task near shore, now sometimes requires snorkellers to spend up to ten hours in the water herding sprats with lamps.
Martin Purves, a fisheries advisor quoted in reporting on the Kanditheemu fleet, put it plainly: “By promoting low-impact, one-by-one fisheries like pole and line and handline, the Maldives helps protect its marine ecosystems, bolster their resilience to climate change, and support the long-term livelihoods of coastal communities.” The question is whether that promotion can keep pace with the pressure. The global tuna industry is dominated by methods that produce higher bycatch and lower selectivity, and the economics of scale work against the dhoni. This is the unresolved tension at the heart of the tradition: a nearly thousand-year-old practice that is more sustainable than almost any alternative, but increasingly harder to sustain economically.
A common misconception is that all Maldivian fishing is small-scale and traditional. In reality, the country also has a tuna canning industry and some longline operations. The pole-and-line fleet is the culturally dominant and most visible form, but it is not the only one — and conflating the two obscures the real challenges the traditional sector faces from global competition.
This way of life is not frozen in time. It is adapting, as it has for centuries, to changing conditions. The daily rhythm of the Mas Vaali — the 3:04 am departure, the 75-minute sessions, the profit split — is a living practice, not a museum exhibit. And the people who live it are the ones best positioned to say what adaptation looks like.
Context and Comparison: One Fish at a Time
Understanding what makes Maldivian pole-and-line fishing distinctive means comparing it to the industrial methods that supply most of the world’s tuna. The differences are not merely technical — they reflect fundamentally different assumptions about what fishing is for.
| Dimension | Pole and Line (Maldives) | Industrial Longline / Purse Seine |
|---|---|---|
| Selectivity | Targets skipjack only; bycatch near zero | High bycatch of sharks, turtles, and non-target fish |
| Fuel use per tonne | Lower, due to daily return and smaller vessels | Higher, due to extended voyages and refrigeration |
| Labour model | Profit-sharing among crew and owner | Wage labour or contract-based |
| Regulatory framework | MSC-certified, national quotas | Regional fisheries management organisations, often contested |
| Cultural role | Central to Maldivian identity and cuisine | Commodity export, no specific cultural anchor |
The table makes visible what the numbers alone cannot: the Maldivian method embeds values — selectivity, shared risk, daily return — that industrial fishing does not prioritise. That is not a judgment; it is a structural difference with real consequences for marine ecosystems and coastal communities.
The Silver A’ Design Award for Naajila’s film recognised not just the cinematography but the cultural relevance and social message of documenting a practice that global markets depend on but rarely see. The award jury evaluates entries on originality of concept, narrative clarity, cultural relevance, and social message significance — criteria that align closely with the film’s goal of bringing local traditions to a global stage.
- Maldivian pole-and-line fishing is among the most selective tuna methods in the world, with bycatch below 1%.
- The tradition is economically structured around profit-sharing, not wage labour, and culturally embedded in island life.
- Climate change and industrial overfishing are the primary threats, not a lack of local will or knowledge.
- Visitors can engage with this world through cultural tours that include working fishing communities.
Questions Readers Ask
Is pole-and-line fishing really more sustainable than other methods?
Yes, by most measurable criteria. The Maldives skipjack fishery holds Marine Stewardship Council certification, and its bycatch rate of 0.65% is dramatically lower than longline fishing’s average of 28%. The method also uses barbless hooks, allowing any accidental catch to be released with minimal injury.
How much do Maldivian fishermen earn?
Captain Ibrahim Hamid reports monthly earnings of 15,000–20,000 rufiyaa (about 975–1,300 USD), with successful weeks bringing around 8,000 rufiyaa. Income varies directly with catch volume and is split among the crew after expenses, with the boat owner taking one share and the crew dividing two shares.
What is a dhoni?
A dhoni is a traditional Maldivian wooden vessel, typically 20–30 metres long, used for fishing and transport. Modern dhonis have engines, but the hull design and the daily-return pattern remain unchanged from earlier generations. The Mas Vaali, featured in this article, is a 24-metre dhoni operating out of Kanditheemu.
Is the tradition dying out?
Not yet, but it is under serious pressure. Crews are travelling farther to find baitfish and tuna, fuel costs are rising, and younger Maldivians are increasingly drawn to tourism-sector jobs that offer more predictable hours and income. The practice is not static — it is adapting — but the trajectory is uncertain.
Can visitors see pole-and-line fishing in action?
Yes, but not from a resort. Cultural tours that visit inhabited islands — particularly those with active fishing fleets — offer the best opportunity. Some tours arrange early-morning trips aboard dhonis, though these are observational rather than participatory. The key is to book with operators who work directly with fishing communities rather than staging a performance.
What the Sea Teaches
The fishermen of the Maldives do not think of themselves as guardians of a tradition. They think of themselves as people who need to catch fish to feed their families and pay their debts. But the method they use — the single pole, the barbless hook, the live bait — encodes a relationship with the ocean that industrial fishing has all but erased. It assumes scarcity. It assumes that the fish are not infinite. And it assumes that the crew matters as much as the catch. Those assumptions are not sentimental; they are practical, and they have kept skipjack stocks healthy in Maldivian waters for centuries. Whether they survive the next century depends on forces far beyond the horizon of a dhoni at dawn. To understand that is to understand something essential about life in the Maldives beyond the resort perimeter — a life lived in relationship with the sea, not just adjacent to it.
Sources and further reading
The Guardian. “Just a pole and line, like they fished as boys: how a Maldives tradition is ensuring tuna stocks thrive.” 2025. 🔗
Marine Stewardship Council. “Maldives pole and line skipjack tuna.” 🔗
A’ Design Award & Competition. “Maldivian Fishermen by Aishath Naajila — Silver Award Winner.” 2026. 🔗
Corporate Maldives. “Report: The Economic Impacts of Climate Change on the Maldives Fisheries Industry.” 🔗
Related reading on IslandHopperGuides
Island Life in the Maldives: Adapting to the Rhythms of the Ocean and Small Island Living — a deeper look at how daily life on the islands is shaped by the sea.
The Maldivian Language Dhivehi: A Window into Island Identity and History — language as another lens on Maldivian cultural connections to the ocean.
Explore Places to Stay in Maldives
Feel free to zoom in and out of the map to explore the area and find the best place to stay for your trip.