non west papua bass
Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2015 10:09 pm
Hi all,
was supposed to go to west papua bass fishing but the weather stopped the mothership from getting there, also cancelling flights, closing airports, etc resulting from bushfires instead we ended up fishing the tanimbar islands which is only about 250Nm north of cape don.
after travelling to Bali, Me & mate flew to bali on friday, then spent 12 hours on Sunday to Surabaya, Makassar & ambon where the whole group of 9 were supposed to meet for the next flight to Kaimana in west papua on Monday
As the boat was at Saumlaki new arrangements were hastily made & we all flew down there to join
flew with a mob called lion air, I will never complain about Jetstar again.....
southeaster was howling & did for the next 3 days, but we were on the lee side of the islands & the boat was 40m long so it wasn't an issue
overnight steam to the first system, not that far but it only steams at 6.5knots. I didn't get a bass but a few were caught & plenty of cod, jacks, barra
another overnight steam to another system & this was much better, after negotiating with the local village this system produced bass & between the 3 boats we got about 34 for the day plus barra, jacks etc, I got 5 best being 20 pounds, Peter's was 14
man they hit hard & we got blown away a few times
using 10kg baitcaster, 80 braid, 100 fluoro carbon leader & polty's, locked drag & getting destroyed is something else, drag was that tight we were pulling hooks on barra
fished the same river the next day, same tides & only managed 3 per boat but lots more barra to 94, all fit chromies
So it continued for the next few days & a couple of bigger fish to 33pounds were caught by others in the group, canoes were alround so when we caught something other than bass ie cr.p fish we'd give the locals a feed which they all appreciated greatly
one bloke was waiting for us with a machine gun one night but he was ok
During the trip when we had intermittent phone service we had to make new travel arrangements to get off & ended up going with garuda(much better than lion air) from Saumlaki, ambon, jakarta, bali & stayed there a couple of days & came back to Darwin last Saturday morning
Boat was very comfortable to live on but there were a few let downs, food wasn't good & we brought barra back to cook ourselves
they couldn't make ice to keep the bintang cold in the dinghy's so everyone had to drink their 10 cans by lunchtime, the eskies were vegie boxes, the dinghies only broke down a couple of times so I suppose that's a good thing, the sounders did work but I took one any way
would I go again ?, in a hearbeat. Already put my name down for west papua again 2017 as I still want to go there & its very addictive fishing
bucket list fishing
hard core as you want it
its all about that hit
all the travel sucks, as there are other places the boat could have met us that are serviced direct from bali
already working on mates here with big boats for a trip next year ex darwin
After we got off the boat made its way to west papua for the next group but I don't have any reports yet & they're all stuck there at the moment due to volcanoes now
research suggests bass are in Sulawesi & borneo as well, why they aren't here is a travesty
bl..dy el nino
cheers
Geoff
was supposed to go to west papua bass fishing but the weather stopped the mothership from getting there, also cancelling flights, closing airports, etc resulting from bushfires instead we ended up fishing the tanimbar islands which is only about 250Nm north of cape don.
after travelling to Bali, Me & mate flew to bali on friday, then spent 12 hours on Sunday to Surabaya, Makassar & ambon where the whole group of 9 were supposed to meet for the next flight to Kaimana in west papua on Monday
As the boat was at Saumlaki new arrangements were hastily made & we all flew down there to join
flew with a mob called lion air, I will never complain about Jetstar again.....
southeaster was howling & did for the next 3 days, but we were on the lee side of the islands & the boat was 40m long so it wasn't an issue
overnight steam to the first system, not that far but it only steams at 6.5knots. I didn't get a bass but a few were caught & plenty of cod, jacks, barra
another overnight steam to another system & this was much better, after negotiating with the local village this system produced bass & between the 3 boats we got about 34 for the day plus barra, jacks etc, I got 5 best being 20 pounds, Peter's was 14
man they hit hard & we got blown away a few times
using 10kg baitcaster, 80 braid, 100 fluoro carbon leader & polty's, locked drag & getting destroyed is something else, drag was that tight we were pulling hooks on barra
fished the same river the next day, same tides & only managed 3 per boat but lots more barra to 94, all fit chromies
So it continued for the next few days & a couple of bigger fish to 33pounds were caught by others in the group, canoes were alround so when we caught something other than bass ie cr.p fish we'd give the locals a feed which they all appreciated greatly
one bloke was waiting for us with a machine gun one night but he was ok
During the trip when we had intermittent phone service we had to make new travel arrangements to get off & ended up going with garuda(much better than lion air) from Saumlaki, ambon, jakarta, bali & stayed there a couple of days & came back to Darwin last Saturday morning
Boat was very comfortable to live on but there were a few let downs, food wasn't good & we brought barra back to cook ourselves
they couldn't make ice to keep the bintang cold in the dinghy's so everyone had to drink their 10 cans by lunchtime, the eskies were vegie boxes, the dinghies only broke down a couple of times so I suppose that's a good thing, the sounders did work but I took one any way
would I go again ?, in a hearbeat. Already put my name down for west papua again 2017 as I still want to go there & its very addictive fishing
bucket list fishing
hard core as you want it
its all about that hit
all the travel sucks, as there are other places the boat could have met us that are serviced direct from bali
already working on mates here with big boats for a trip next year ex darwin
After we got off the boat made its way to west papua for the next group but I don't have any reports yet & they're all stuck there at the moment due to volcanoes now
research suggests bass are in Sulawesi & borneo as well, why they aren't here is a travesty
bl..dy el nino
cheers
Geoff
