Andaman Sea Deep Dive: Popping and Jigging the Burma Banks
The Andaman Sea hides its best fishing in plain sight. Millions of travellers fly into Phuket every year for beaches and longtail boats, never suspecting that a day's steam to the west and north lie some of Southeast Asia's wildest offshore grounds: isolated pinnacles and sea mounds rising out of deep blue water, washed by currents that funnel baitfish into kill zones patrolled by giant trevally, dogtooth tuna and sailfish. The names — the Burma Banks, the Mergui Archipelago, the Similan and Surin islands — carry the ring of frontier fishing, because that is exactly what this still is: a fishery explored seriously only since the 1990s, and still nowhere near fully mapped.
The arena: pinnacles in a deep blue sea
The geography explains everything. West of the Thai coast, the continental shelf gives way to deep water dotted with abrupt structure. The Similan Islands, about 60 kilometres off Khao Lak, are granite boulders plunging into 30 to 70 metres. Beyond them, Koh Bon and Koh Tachai funnel current like venturi tubes. Farther north, Richelieu Rock — a horseshoe pinnacle famous among divers for whale sharks — barely breaks the surface above 35 metres of water. And then, 100-plus nautical miles northwest of Phuket in Myanmar waters, rise the Burma Banks: a cluster of submerged sea mounds, including Silvertip, Roe and Rainbow banks, where the bottom jumps from around 300 metres to plateaus 15 to 20 metres deep. Every one of these features is a current-swept ambush point, and the predators that hold on them are the reason anglers endure the long crossings.
Giant trevally: the headline act
GT popping is the sport that put the Andaman on the map. The technique is simple in description and brutal in practice: heave a 100- to 200-gram popper or stickbait on an 8-foot popping rod, 80- to 100-pound braid and a 130-pound leader, then chug it back across the pinnacle with sweeping rod strokes until a black shape launches itself through the surface. Andaman GTs commonly run 10 to 25 kilograms, with fish over 40 kilos hooked — though not always landed — every season around the Burma Banks and the better Mergui pinnacles. The strike zone is unforgiving: hooked fish dive straight for coral and cliff faces, and drag settings north of 10 kilos with locked harnesses are standard. Around the full and new moons, when current runs hardest, the banks switch on; in slack neaps the same marks can feel deserted, and good skippers plan whole itineraries around tide phase.
Dogtooth tuna and the vertical game
If GTs are the heavyweight brawlers, dogtooth tuna are the assassins below. Doggies stalk the thermoclines off the pinnacle walls, and the way to them is vertical: 200- to 400-gram knife jigs dropped to 60 to 150 metres and ripped back with fast mechanical pitch. The first run of a serious dogtooth is among the most violent events in sportfishing — fish of 30 to 60 kilos sound for the bottom with almost unstoppable power, and the Burma Banks have produced doggies well beyond that. The same vertical work also produces ruby snapper, amberjack, various groupers including huge brown-marbled and potato grouper, green jobfish and the occasional wahoo slashing at the jig on the drop. Most crews carry two full sets per angler: popping outfit rigged on deck, jigging outfit standing by.
Sailfish, marlin and the trolling miles
The long transits between marks are never dead time. The channel between the Similans and the mainland, and the waters off Koh Bon and Koh Tachai, hold one of Asia's most reliable Indo-Pacific sailfish concentrations, with peak action from roughly November to April. Boats pull skirted lures, rigged garfish or halco-style divers and routinely raise multiple sails a day in season, with black marlin an occasional bonus around the deeper banks. Spanish mackerel, longtail tuna and queenfish fill in closer to the islands. Some operations run dedicated light-tackle sailfish days out of Phuket or Khao Lak for anglers who want billfish without the long steam northwest.
Liveaboards: how the trips actually work
The serious fishing is liveaboard fishing. Boats depart Phuket's Chalong Bay or Khao Lak and run multi-day itineraries: typically 3 to 5 days for the Similans-Richelieu circuit, 5 to 7 days for the Mergui Archipelago and Burma Banks. Myanmar-water trips historically clear in at Kawthaung, the border port opposite Thailand's Ranong, where permits, port fees and a Myanmar national guide are arranged — operators handle the paperwork, but it adds meaningful cost and lead time, and access rules have shifted with Myanmar's political situation, so booking through an established operator with current information is essential. Expect simple cabins, big ice holds, fishing from first light until after dark, and crews who jig for bait at anchor. The season is dictated by the southwest monsoon: the fishing window runs roughly mid-October to early May, with December to March the calm-sea prime.
The Mergui Archipelago: 800 islands, almost nobody fishing
North of the border sprawls one of Asia's last empty coastlines: the Mergui Archipelago, roughly 800 islands across 36,000 square kilometres, populated thinly by Moken sea nomads and visited by a handful of liveaboards. The fishing here is shallower and more varied than the banks — popping rocky headlands for GTs and bluefin trevally, casting at bait balls under bird flocks, working river mouths where barramundi and mangrove jack hold among the snags. It is not a numbers-of-giants game like the Burma Banks; it is exploratory fishing in a landscape essentially unchanged for centuries, and many anglers rate the wilderness itself as the catch of the trip.
Conservation in a frontier fishery
The Andaman's remoteness is no longer full protection. Commercial pressure — including purse seiners and longliners from several nations — has dented some bank fisheries, and Thai marine national parks around the Similan and Surin islands restrict or prohibit fishing within their boundaries, so reputable charters fish outside park zones and observe seasonal closures (the parks themselves close to all visitors from mid-May to mid-October). The sport-fishing fleet has broadly adopted release of GTs and billfish, single barbless trebles or inline singles on poppers, and no-take of vulnerable species like humphead wrasse. Choosing operators who follow these practices is the most direct way visiting anglers keep this frontier worth the crossing.
Explore on the map
Pull up the map and trace the line northwest from Phuket: past the Similan chain, Koh Bon and Koh Tachai, up to Richelieu Rock, then across the open water toward the Mergui Archipelago and the lonely contours of the Burma Banks. The distances explain why this is liveaboard country, and the depth changes explain where the GTs live. Find the Andaman Sea on the map and you can plot a popping itinerary before you ever feel the first strike.