Indonesia My Little Indo Offshore Fishing Trip

[venpk09]

Hi guys,

I am new to this forum and thought i would share a past CR in indonesia or else my username might get deleted for having no posts so far ?


My Little Indo Offshore Fishing Trip

It has been quite some time since I last fished in indonesia. Thus on a recent trip over (on holiday), my kakis decided to organise a good trip for ourselves and after a long search, we settled on fishing in SMR. A totally new playground for all of us!

Preparations for this trip, can at best, be described as insane! We were set to go for a 3 days 2 nights fishing trip somewhere near Krakatau, the infamous volcano that erupted in the late 1800s. Type of fishing to expect was bottom to jigging with a short session of popping.


The Plan

In all, there would 3 of us flying in from Singapore.
Larry and myself will fly in first while his cousin-in-law, Ibrahim, would fly in a day before before the trip. His cousin-in-law had initial problems obtaining the "visa" for clearance with the CO and almost had to abort! Good thing he made it!

Once in Indonesia, we would meet up with Rusli, our good ole brother, and his Indonesian friends for this fateful trip.


The hunting party: Myself, Rusli, Ibrahim, Larry


Preparations

With the trip set and booked, I was told to prepare jigs and poppers of 100-150 grams, and be prepared to fish at around 200 meters. Type of fishing was bottom to jigging to a short session of popping. Bait to be used was “tongkol” aka bonito tuna. (This vague information turned out to be really misleading resulting in lots of mis-bought gears and terminal tackle! )



Arriving in indo with our overweight baggage!

[venpk09]

Trip Briefing

After arriving at Jakarta, together with larry and Rusli, we met up with the rest of the fishing team that we were to set out with. They were all very easy going and were supa dupa hardcore! Over dinner, they discussed the numerous aspects of the trip and divided up the required stuff that need to be bought to everyone. As they were speaking in bahasa Indonesia which I did not understand, throughout the conversation, I could only try to catch bits of information here and there.

During this meeting, we realised most of the stuff we bought were wrong! Jigs were to be 200-400 grams, not 100-150 grams! Hooks used would vary according to the type of fishing biting and would range from size 7 to 11. The main target of the trip would be dogtooth tunas and bluefin trevallies.

This resulted in lots of last minute frenzy buying in Indonesia as we tried to rectify our gears.


Dinner!


My newfound indonesian friends


Gears layout

Gears layout

Gears layout


Little Rich boys!


Welcoming our fishing general, the Black mamba!


Kabeng soup! Simply sublime!

[venpk09]

The Actual Trip

Friday finally came. The entire team had agreed to first meet up at one of the local tackle shops. From there, we would move off together in our respective vehicles. By this time, Ibrahim had also flown in from Singapore the previous evening and everyone was good to go!

Before the meet up, we had time to take breakfast at a local market, while soaking in the sights and sounds.





Breakfast in high spirits!


After some more last minute buying, we started to load up and finally set off. The ride was uneventful and we stopped several times to let one of our team members whom was driving (Hardy) rest his aching back which had started to act up.
Soon it was lunch and we stopped at the highway pitstop for A&W!


The local tackle shop. Full of shimano stuff.
2 levels of tackle in all, mostly on light to medium tackle.


Level one


Loading up and fooling around as usual!







The newly formed fishing team with us as guests.


Rusli reporting strenght to his CO, whom was not too happy about his sudden renewed interest in fishing![/quote]

[venpk09]

We felt that the air con was rather weak and decided to top up the freon gas as the drive was going to be a long one.


A&W!!!



Everyone waiting impatiently for their floats!


Presenting: Da floats!

Simply good!

The drive continued unevenfully.
Apparently it was quite a long ride but I did not really feel it as there was plenty to see and take in along the way.
We stopped occasionally to allow our friend hardy to rest his back and to refresh ourselves.


Ice cream at the petrol kiosk, sounds familiar?


Another short stop along the road


dozing off...

[venpk09]

Around early evening, we arrived at the dock .
Stepping out of the car, we were greeted by the cool sea breeze and sparkling sea that lay before us.
The sight of the docked boats gently rocking with the waves really lifted our spirits and we were all raring to go. After loading up, we moved off excitedly.








Seasick pills anyone? :badgrin:[/quote]

The Boat

Naturally, I was very curious to take a look at the quality of the quarters that we would be putting up in for the next 2 nights.

Initial inspection of the boat outer looks seems not too bad. In all, there were 4 or 5 boats that were roughly similar in built. (From what I found out later from the captain) These boats were co-owned by the same bosses and each boat had their own captains leading their own crew.

The vessels were clean and rather well equipped with some of them even having a mini crane with a small row boat attached. The upper decks of each boat were comfortably built with seats and a table installed.

At the primary deck, the back of the vessel was spacious with a table in the center and fighting chairs surrounding it.

Other than the usual kitchen and TV area, there were in total 3 bed rooms which was rather spacious compared to most of the 3D2N boats I’ve been to. The best part of the boat I felt was the toilets! There were 2 toilets onboard! The toilets were spacious and very comfortable to move about it.


TV room

TV room swamped with equipment.


Kitchen


One of the toilets


Back of the boat


Fighting chair


Corridoor leading to the 3 bedrooms


Bedroom 1 - very spacious with lots of room to put your stuff


Bedroom 2


Bedroom 3 - comes with window view!


As we moved off, the first spot was to be 8 hours away and to try for dogtooth. I made a decision and decide to skip the first spot and rest well instead. Thus i knocked out till day break! :zzz: :zzz: :zzz:

[venpk09]

The next morning

When I awoke, it was day 2-morning. Crawling out of the warm bed with the air-con at full blast was torturous! It was that comfortable!

Once at the main deck, a quick survey told me the bite rate had not been too good and everyone sat around sleepily with their rods parked. I popped up to the top level to take a look at the depth sounder. It registered 165 meters!!!

Holy cow! 165 meters!!!

Afraid of “char bee hoon”, I decided to fish at the front of the boat with was deserted. Over there I saw the captain fishing at starboard side. After a rather painful conversation, (I could not speak bahasa indonesia) I made out that the pervious night catch was poor and he had only landed a dogtooth and small trevallies.


Me with captian's catch

Eh? fly all the way here and catch what we caught in TP again?


Due to the lack of line cap, I decided to try jigging and not bottom was I was afraid of being stripped. For the next 20 mins, I managed to follow through my plan before giving up. Jigging was simply too tiring! More over, my jig seems to be drifting and I did not have any heavier ones.

Being the lazy angler, I decided, why bother with rig tying? I would do what Zihao suggested, rig up my assit hook with a strip of tongkol (Bonito tuna) and let it down, adjusting the depth every 10 mins or so.

As I sat there trying to get comfortable, I started to take notice of the captain. Mind, was he hard working! He was fishing with handlines and kept checking his bait, hauling up at 160++ metres! He also jigged briefly with another handline and only gave after snagging someone else’s line instead.

After 2-3 hours, I decided enough was enough. I reeled up and went to the back of the boat and joined up with the rest.

[venpk09]

Start of the frenzy

Arriving at the back of the boat, I found just a handful of guys actually fishing. One trend I found that everyone was using enormous spinning reels. Majority of the reels were okumas with 1 or 2 stellas (did not really count). Finding an empty slot at the back, I parked my rod there. As I still had phobia of being stripped, I dare not lower to the bottom, even after the recommendation of the deckies.

Time passed and we experience no major bites. I could not help but start to feel abit anxious. It has been 4 hours since I started fishing and no bites! What happened to the catch reports that I have previously read online? Losing confidence with my jig with bait attached dangling at mid water; I decided it was now or never! Time to try bottom!!!

Looking around, I saw my newly respooled torium which I had loaned to larry still resting at a corner, untouched. I passed the setup to one of the deckies together with a hook and a lenght of fluorocarbon for him to rig up.

The way these Indonesian deckies fished was very simple. No rangongs required! He would simply tie the hook at one end of the line and a loop at the other end he would attach a size 9-10 sinker. Bait used were 20 cm bonito tunas, filleted and halfed again. Meaning 4 strips of bait for each tuna.

While the deckie was busy rigging up, I decided to try jigging once again. Thus I reverted back to my setup while the deckie started fishing with the torium. The time at this point of time was around noon.

We love red rubies!

Moments after the deckie hit bottom, I saw him carefully feeling the lines. In one fluid motion, he suddenly strike and cranked up swiftly. Next all hell broke loose, my rod started bending, indicating a sizeable fish at the other end!

As was busy with my own rod, I screamed excited for biowaste to come over and bring up the fish! Everyone onboard started cheering and gathered round, eager to see what was being landed. After several tortuous minutes, we suddenly saw a flash of red in the sea! It was a good size red ruby!


The first red ruby of the trip!

#@%#^ barracoutas

With the first red ruby up, everyone started fishing with renewed vigor! At this point of time, I could not care less about line being stripped! I quickly rigged up for bottom fishing and waited.

It took ages to hit bottom. I watched anxiously as my line emptied out while waiting for that familiar thud. Once my rig reached bottom, I started feeling all sorts of nibbles on the end of my line. I started to wait confidently for the magical big take but it simply never came.

Thus, I could only stare on at my counterparts whom by now have hooked a fish and were battling them up. However, a large percentage of the fishes were lost at mid water with hooks gone. Ibrahim in particular became one of the major victims and to constantly retie his rig. The fishes that were we managed to land were a mixture of barracoutas and red rubies.


Cranking up the slack, fish lost again!


Rusli battling his red ruby! Poor guy is super prone to sea sickness yet loves fishing so much!


The deckie started to watch in amusement at me trying desperately to strike the fish without success. He indicated that I should pass him my rod while he demonstrated once to me. Within the seconds after he took over, my rod started to bend crazily as well! Hoohoo!!!!

Afraid of losing my fish, I cranked up hastily! It was a sizable barracouta! Though slightly disappointed, I was quite please as it was the largest barracouta landed at the point of time.

[venpk09]

Spurred by the landing of the barracouta, I quickly rebaited and sent down my line once again. It was indeed a fishing haven, one drop one fish.
However, the tricky part about landing these fishes was the hook setting part. Once you have hit bottom, there would be consistent nibbling of your bait. To land the fish, striking and reeling up part of the line is crucial.

I somehow was unable to master the technique and after several failed attempts, the deckie would simply take over and help me set the hook.


















Soon, it was mid afternoon. Taking an inventory check, we had bad news!
Firstly, our bait was running out! Our 50kg of tongkol has been almost depleted and we are only left with a small bag of squid which later proved to be not too effective.

Secondly, apparently the mineral water bought wwas insufficent! Our fresh water supply was running out fast!

[venpk09]

During the ruby frenzy, quite a few fishes were lost at boat side.
Somehow the hook became dislodged from the fishes mouth and the fishes would float away, much to our dismay.

As we continued to fish till evening, the bite rate slowed down. We remained at the same spot as the captain was waiting for the tide to turn. During this period a few random fishes were landed. Grouper, puffer fish, barracuda(normal kind) and barracoutas... etc


Part of the barracoutas caught, deckie cliams that the flesh is delicious!






everyone starting to feel the heat and stop fishing.


Kerisi? fish ID pls


Handline! Need to have sufficent linecap!


My championship puffer!

[venpk09]

The cook serving up some treats! a semi frozen caramel pudding! It was so good!


Delicious! Icy cool! Even the seasick rusli could not resist!


dozing off


No bites...


Hardworking Ibrahim finally gets his reward!

Change Spot

As evening drew closer, the captain decided it was time to move.
He had good news, for the rest of the night; we would be trying for dogtooth!
We would first travel to a shallower spot (~90meters) to try our luck before deciding where to move off next. This came as good news as my line has already been cut twice.


A shot of the sunset before we moved off

Spirits onboard became visibly higher as most of the guys onboard had come on this trip with landing a dogtooth as their main goal.

[venpk09]

No bait how to fish?

By the time we reached the next spot, it was already dark.
The captain switched on the spot lights to attract squids as bait and indicated to us that we should drop or lines as well.



Soon, we were greeted with the familiar splashes as the odd squid or baitfish, attracted by the spot lights, would surface around the boat.
However, try as we might, the squids refused to be caught. The guys onboard started to become restless as we had only a small bag of frozen squid left as bait.


One of the 3 squids caught. The wings of the squid is really very different from the usual arrow squids we catch in malaysia. The wings are longer and flappy, like the ears of the dumbo elephant.

Still armed with my size 7 hook, I rationed myself and attached a small strip of squid as bait. As soon as I hit bottom, the small insistent nibbles kept coming but there were no takes. Suddenly, I felt a strong take and I striked instinctively! Fish on!

I cranked up quickly but due to the depth, was soon tired out. When the fish was finally landed, there was a huge gash at the end of its tail! Barracouta?


Is this a kerisi bali?

With the first fish up at the new spot, everyone grew in confidence and waited. There were a few hook ups but fish were lost at mid water.

The captain managed to net a squid and quickly used it as bait. Moments later, we were presented with this beauty.


Blue fin trevally

[venpk09]

Over the next few hours, there were no bites at all, partly due to the fact there was no fresh bait. Even our frozen squid was running out!
I also lost another fish on the way up. (Im convinced it was a much bigger kerisi bali)

The captained decided to shift to another nearby spot and by this time, everyone has given up. The only guys left fishing were myself, 2 deckies and the captain.

Feeling super demoralized, I continued using my size 7 hook try my luck once again.
At this new spot, there was plenty of bait stealers. I had to rebait quite a few times, which was very tiring due to the depth.

I finally got lucky and managed to hit something really small! It was a 700gram snapper!
Somehow, my gigantic hook had gouged into the poor snapper’s belly and brought it up.
The deckies also managed to land a few snappers at this same spot.


Another smallish snapper

On hindsight, I should have swapped to a smaller hook or even Apollo. After landing another smallish snapper, I decided this was no fun at all. Noticing the captain had started jigging, I decided to join him briefly.


The very friendly captain! Even when everyone has given up, he would still continue fishing! Respect!

Jigging with the captain was hilarious! As the wind had started to pick up, there were several occasions where he would cast out his jig only for the jig to swing back and come straight at us, forcing us to take cover!


The captain jigging


Jigs


The captain miscued earlier, sending all of us to take cover





Deckie jigging as well



With us failing to land anything, i finally gave up and knocked out.

[venpk09]

The Next morning

When i awoke at 6.30, I was starting to have a very bad sore throat.
The lack of potable water onboard combined with the smoke inhaled onboard was killing me. This drove me to do the unthinkable, drink the tap water!
Actually, I have already been doing this since yesterday and I have already been punished by having to visit the toilet quite a few times in the night.

Feeling lousy, I stepped out onto deck and found quite a few guys has already started fishing again. From what I gather, the only notable catch was Ibrahim had awaken at 4.00 am and landed a 2kg size snapper before going back to sleep.

Due to stomachache and a bad headache, the morning was a blur to me.
We managed to land 1-2 ruby snappers again and lost 1-2 at boatside due to the hook slipping out of the fish’s mouth.



With totally no bait left, all the guys decided that we shall head back.
To try our luck, we would travel at trolling speed and troll all the way back to port.


group photo at the top deck

Before I continue, just a little background info regarding Krakatau:

Quoting from Wikipedia:

“The best-known eruption of Krakatoa culminated in a series of massive explosions on August 26–27, 1883, which was among the most violent volcanic events in modern and recorded history.

With a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 6, the eruption was equivalent to 200 megatons (MT) of TNT—about 13,000 times the nuclear yield of the Little Boy bomb (13 to 16 kT) that devastated Hiroshima, Japan during World War II and four times the yield of the Tsar Bomba (50 MT), the largest nuclear device ever detonated.

The 1883 eruption ejected approximately 21 cubic kilometres (5.0 cu mi) of rock, ash, and pumice.The cataclysmic explosion was distinctly heard as far away as Perth in Western Australia, about 1,930 miles (3,110 km) away, and the island of Rodrigues near Mauritius, about 3,000 miles (5,000 km) away.

Near Krakatoa, according to official records, 165 villages and towns were destroyed and 132 seriously damaged, at least 36,417 (official toll) people died, and many thousands were injured by the eruption, mostly from the tsunamis that followed the explosion. The eruption destroyed two-thirds of the island of Krakatoa.

Eruptions at the volcano since 1927 have built a new island in the same location, named Anak Krakatau (Indonesian: "Child of Krakatoa"). This island currently has a radius of roughly 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) and a high point around 300 metres (980 ft) above sea level, growing 5 metres (16 ft) each year. ”

[venpk09]

Due to the lack of fresh water onboard and with our strength all depleted from the previous day’s fishing, the entire crew decided we shall head back earlier and use the extra time to troll slowly back to mainland.

We also decided to troll past Krakatau, the infamous volcano. Over there, those that want to try GT popping can do so over there.

As moved off slowly towards Krakatau, all of us gathered at the topdeck to relax and enjoy the beautiful sea breeze. Along the way, we slighted quite a few bill fishes surfacing, but registered no takes at all. One highlight was when a pod of dolphins decided to swim alongside our vessel and repeatedly do aerial 360 ºC twists along side us. The repeated acrobatic displays delighted everyone onboard, and were really breathtaking to behold.














The snappers caught were all considered bait fishes and were all chopped up for soup!

[venpk09]

And that spelled the end of my little trip.

the aftermath...

[Narc]

Nice CR, great write up.

Please bro, when fishing in Indonesia, never take the risk of drinking from other than bottled waters. Simply make the habit of checking for drinking supply once on the boat, its alright to delay the set off time a little just to grab more somewhere if there isnt enough.

[trick]

Nice cr and picture especially the scenery around the area..

[john-budi]

well written ! nice sceneries photo too.

[Hafidz Adam]

Very nice CR & Pixs
I'm based in JKT now & trying to hook-up with the local fishing fraternity.
Wud appreciate some ctcs if possible..

[Civic_eyez]

Bro... Can share with me the contact for your this boat anot... many thanks