27th to 28th March 2004 - Tanjung Pinang - Mapur

[LBT]

Armed with success from our previous Mapur trip, the 3 Amigos begin our Mapur fishing expedition trip with much anticipation. The same boat and crew along with Mike “the guru” joining us on this trip sent our confidence soaring high.

Our expedition begins with a 45 minutes mini van ride from Tanjung Pinang ferry terminal to Kichang. Upon arrival we immediately received some very disheartening feedback from the group of anglers who went out a day before us. According to them, their catch was nowhere near to their satisfactory level. Nevertheless, this piece of undesirable news did not in anyway dampen our spirit and expectation for this trip, because we believe that when it comes to fishing, the past is never a good representation of the future.

The 3 hours journey out to sea provided opportunities for fishing amateur like Derrick, Gary, and Chris to ‘con’ Mike “the guru” to type a hook or two for us and also to catch some well-deserved rest.

The cease of the boat’s engine sent all our fishing line down in anticipation for catching any kind of big sea creature. Everyone onboard held onto their tackle tight with high spirit, when no one onboard begin to catch anything everyone begins to leave their tackle on the rod holder and embark on our cock talking sessions. Nothing significant was caught before dinnertime.

Being out fishing in the middle of the sea is not an excuse for us to compromise on our meals. Our dinner consist of vegetables, pork, chicken wings, gong gong, and watermelon. And hot soupy Maggie noodles with hot tea were served for supper. Maybe some of our local fishing charter could learn from their Indonesian counterparts to expand and re-design their menus to increase customer satisfaction. One word of advice: if you want to serve just salted vegetables with porridge, please at least include some salted eggs as well!

The barracuda infected water of Mapur, provided little action for us apart from edy’s hook up with a 100+ kg gigantic sea turtle, which we released that beautiful sea creature without any hesitation.

Mike ‘the guru’, sent the whole boat into wild jigging frenzy, when he caught the first “Bulat” on jig. A few plate size “Bulat” was landed by jigging that night, convinced me that some fish prefer to eat moving shiny metal pieces rather then tasty squid sashimi.

By daybreak, except for the barracudas, we landed nothing over 3.5kg and just managed to fill up a tiny icebox. With plenty of iceboxes waiting to be filled, we decided to change our strategy and lower our expectation on fish size. The morning window period provided lots of action around the boat, a final chance for everyone on board to catch something before our trip back. Each and everyone of us had our fair share of fun during this period, satisfying the minimum level of our fishing desire, leaving a huge part of that craving unfulfilled.

Breakfast was a total turn off for the 3 amigos; the sight of porridge and salted vegetables brings back the bad memories of our Horsburg trip. We rather starve and go to bed with an empty stomach then have another meal of porridge and salted vegetables.

This expedition trip ended slightly after breakfast, the overall catch includes Barracudas, “Ang Chor Kee”, “Leng Chiam”, Cobia, “Ang Kor Lee”, “Bulat”, “Kachi” and other assorted fish.

A short nap on our journey back to Kichang, and a quick shower upon arrival recharges all our weary and tired bodies. And prepared us for a sumptuous seafood lunch, and some amazing magic show by our in house magician – Gary Copperfield [Gary Copperfield is available for magic shows booking for all private or corporate events, please contact me for rates – *Please note all proceeds from Gary Copperfield’s magic performance will be donated to the Amigos Fishing Foundation Fund to sponsor our future fishing trips so that we will have more catch reports to post so as to keep all you lazy fellows occupied during your office hours]

When it’s a trip organized by Edy and if there is any spare time, he will bring you around for food. Our organizer graciously brought us to sample the best “Gado Gado” and “Mee Soto” in Tanjung Pinang, and none of us could resist the temptation of the food there, even it’s served not too long after our lunch.

Although our catch was not fantastically good, no monster fish that put up a good fight for anyone of us. But I believe I spoke for everyone when I say that this would be one of the most memorable fishing trip we had, because of great company. For future fishing trips, my top wish list would defiantly be to have the same set of anglers [Adrian, Alice Derrick, Edy, Gary, Jason, Jordan, Mike, & Vincent] back. Next down the list is to have a sexy and pretty deckie in bikini on board.

[jason]

These are the pics.....

Wow! This time round the catch not so good but the company is 100%, sure hope to have reunion soon on board. here are more photos

[edylie]

We will back for more on May 21, 22 and 23

Thanks for the pic Vincent.

Wondering if there is anymore?

Best Regards,
Edy