Giant Gouramy

This fish is well known by most people in the region (South East Asia) not only as a tough figther but the meat is also known to be one of the best taste for freshwater fish. Unfortunately, the fish is a slow grow and take longer years to grow to its maximum size. The fish can grow to 10 kg in size even more in some cases, but common size is between 3-5 kg max.

The fish is omnivore but prefer insects such as cockroach, cricket, and hopper. So this fish is very potential for fly fishermen. The fish is strong and has sharp tiny teeth, so the use of light tippet could mean dissapointment for the fisherman. Also, the fish lives in still water where current is very weak or none existence.

Anyway, enough with all the introductory and go straight to business. The fish was caught using pellet like fly. The fly is made of orange close cell foam. When you fish using this fly, it is best to chum the water with real pellet and cast your fly right in the middle of it then you wait for the rise.

Milkfish on fly

Bandeng, that's the local name for milkfish. The species is known as a tough fighter for its size. You can expect the fight to last all the way from hook up to releasing the hook.

By the way, I forgot to mentioned in my previous post that the pond charge you by the weight of the fish landed. You can not release the fish back to the water because it is a stocked pond.

It was a fun trip, especially when some of my best buddies join me in the trip: Ricky, Fritz (Ricky's son), and Sandy. Guys, we should do this again more often!

Tanjung Burung Tilapia

It was Saturday morning, I head my car toward the Jakarta International Airport and made a stop just before the gate into the airport. I met with a fellow flyfisherman ... one who actually introduced me to the world of fly fishing: Ricky.

Turned out, Ricky was there earlier and he took along his eldest son Fritz. We had planned this trip a week before to fish for brackish water milkfish and tilapia.

It wasn't until another 30-45 minutes before we reached the the boatman's place. After unloading all the equipment onto the boat, we cruised along the river for about 15 minutes until we arrived near the location. Another 5 minute walked we reached our final destination: a complex of large brackish ponds filled with milk fish and tilapias.

To make the long story short, I'll let the pictures say it all ... (only sample of so many successful landings). I'll talk about my successful story with the milkfish tomorrow ...  :D

Carp on Nymph

One fine Sunday morning ... I went to a place near my house in Sentul: Panjang Jiwo. It's a sort of resort with one relatively large man made lake and two big ponds.

The fish stocked in those waters ranging from carp, pacu, jaguar chiclid, pangasius, and some other native species like java barb, indopacific tarpon, etc.

So far, I've been very successful in these waters on bait. Yes, bait ... before I switched to fly fishing. Now, I'm going to share to you my success story on fly ... CARP ON NYMPH!!!

Fresh from the water

Position for posing

The productive flies

Buzzers

I was so intrigued to create my own buzzers after I saw some posts made by other fellow fly tyers. I used alternative materials in the making such as plastic hand bag for the side case.

Usually, others tied a much slimmer body profile but I just have the urge to make a much larger body profile. Hopefully the fish would think of the fly as a big juicy thing and a must have :)

Red & White Popper

Based on the experience of fellow fishermen (not necessarily fly fishermen), I gathered information on the best color combination that work best in the water surrounding my area (Indonesia), and that is red and white. To my interest, the color combination is similar to the color combination of our national flag. So I feel very nationalist when making this popper ... hopefully this will yield me uncountable fight with various species in my local waters.

As you can see I still need to work on my epoxy skill

Red Kinkhamer

I consider myself as an unordinary fly tyer who rarely follow advises from other senior more experienced fly tyers. Not that I don't put respect to their higher rank, but I have never been able to put myself on the 'right' track and keep on it. My curiosity to try something else and using alternative materials always exceed my want of becoming a regular tyer who always on the 'right' track .. track that the fundamentalists/purists/traditionalists have set.

I have nothing against those fundamentalists/purists/traditionalists, in fact I want to become one ... it's just ... ahhhhh, forget about it. So please don't be surprised when you see something out of the ordinary .... enjoy!

Larger body profile

Slimmer body profile

Top view