Recommendations to Alor / Komodo Island

[Jon Li]

Guys ,

I met Y. Mogi n company yesterday in Bali , their trip to Alor was very disappointing , only smaller fishes were caught by jigging despite lots of showing in the sonar screen and the same with popping , there were just not too many response from GTs there , well as they say ; " it's fishing n not catching " . 

Jon .

[Mark Harris]

That's largely been the tale this season in Alor Jon.  I have just heard that Matsutani is out there with Ocean Dreams this week. If he cannot raise the Doggies, nobody can! 

[Lenny Lim]

Guys, I heard,

1) Komodo is now very poor fishing and so is Sumba.

The next hot spot is Sawu Island. Does anyone have any experience to share ?

[Mark Harris]

Not true at all Lenny.  Still amazing GT fishing in the points to the south of Komodo and all around Sumba. The fishing in the northern parts of Komodo (i.e. the areas easily reachable by day trips from Labuhan Bajo) is less good. But "very poor" is  a bad description , even for those sites.   Sumba is very under-fished and there is huge scope for new sites to be discovered.

Sawu (or more commonly Savu) Islands are directly between Sumba and Rote. I have heard good things about fishing there but have no first hand experience. Very remote and logistically extremely hard.

[Lenny Lim]

Mark, thanks for the pointers.

We have been offered to Sawu and were told that most areas remain lowly discovered. But you are right, we have to tolerate the 12 hours of ferry service from Kupang to Sawu.

So, it boils down to adventure ? or take standard route ?

Anyway, I guess Kaisar must be very busy until they can't give us their numbers or reply emails.

[Mark Harris]

One issue with a lot of these Eastern Indonesia sites Lenny is that one operator might do 2 trips to say Sumba and have poorish results. And on that, they advise customers that the fishing is no good.  Another operator goes and and has one excellent trip.

The point being, there are very few trips to these places, so making judgments that fishing is suddenly poor is a dangerous thing to do. More important is that the environment remains superb and the fish are certainly there.  Whether you catch them or not on one particular trip is open to all sorts of variables.

[Jon Li]

Komodo n Sumba still produce big fish , the key is to be in the right place at the right time , watching the high n low tides are the key of successfull fishing .

Jon .

[Ken Tsai]

Komodo n Sumba still produce big fish , the key is to be in the right place at the right time , watching the high n low tides are the key of successfull fishing .

Jon .

Agree..I think GT become active when right direction of tide and  good speed of current...same in Taiwan..

[Mark Harris]

Hi Ken. Mark from Bali here. Very good to see you at this forum .

[Ken Tsai]

Hi Ken. Mark from Bali here. Very good to see you at this forum .

Hi Mark:
Good to see you,too!

[Simon Bomholt]

[Al Morrison]

Simon, I've replied to you separately, but as Mark and others allude to, whilst Komodo isnt flavour of the month the way it was say 5-10 yrs ago (based on comments fom people who have fished it extensively and actually catch lots of big GT's), i have friends who dive there regularly and they still see very large GT's (so they tell me, judged by the fish swimming past them). The fishing is probably harder than elsewhere. I fished it 2 yrs ago and we caught lots of fish (well we did on one day, and didnt on 2 other days) but no monsters.

[Mark Harris]

Hi Simon

There are really three quality options for day charter trips in Bali:

Adhek http://adhek.net
Xplore http://www.xplore-charters.com
Kaisar http://www.kaisar-fishing.com/e-index.html

All 3 go to more or less the same sites. All others here should be treated with caution. They are either catch and kill operators who deserve no support, or dive boats with little fishing knowledge.

Alternatively drop me a PM with your likely Bali dates and if I am going out anyway, I am more than happy to split costs with you.

For Komodo, I do not know much about the day trip operators in Labuan Bajo and who to recommend.  I have fished Komodo and surrounding areas many times but always as a 3, 4 or 5 day liveaboard. What I will say is that the better popping sites in Komodo cannot be reached by a day trip out of Labuan Bajo, hence the preference for liveaboards.

[Jon Li]

Hi Simon

There are really three quality options for day charter trips in Bali:

Adhek http://adhek.net
Xplore http://www.xplore-charters.com
Kaisar http://www.kaisar-fishing.com/e-index.html

All 3 go to more or less the same sites. All others here should be treated with caution. They are either catch and kill operators who deserve no support, or dive boats with little fishing knowledge.

Alternatively drop me a PM with your likely Bali dates and if I am going out anyway, I am more than happy to split costs with you.

For Komodo, I do not know much about the day trip operators in Labuan Bajo and who to recommend.  I have fished Komodo and surrounding areas many times but always as a 3, 4 or 5 day liveaboard. What I will say is that the better popping sites in Komodo cannot be reached by a day trip out of Labuan Bajo, hence the preference for liveaboards.

Hi Mark ,

I use this charter : http://xtreme-ulua.com/ , most accomodating , just ask Andy Rowe who has fished with me with this charter a couple of times .

Jon .

[Mark Harris]

Hi Jon

Sure. I have heard lots of good things about Extreme Ulua. It is a liveaboard though right? I think Simon was looking for day trip options for Komodo.