Fishing Batubulan

Managed to get to Bali for the first time with the family even though I’d been on the operating table having my bicep tendon reattached just 9 days earlier and can’t put any load heavier than a glass of water on it so on our last day I asked a few locals if they could take my oldest boy out fishing inside the reef with my watching and they just weren’t keen unless we booked it for 4 hours and paid full price for two so my cousin suggests we visit the snapper ponds he’s been to.

My cousin has a friend Ketut he sometimes stays with and brought out to Preston Beach last year who was our ride to the hotel so I contacted Ketut and he picks us up in half an hour from Sanur and we’re off and the white people are getting fewer and fewer until I’m deep in Batubulan and kicking up in Ketut’s house with his wife bringing through some delicious food and lemonade overlooking rice fields. We grab Ketut’s 12y old boy and he takes us for a drive through narrow, hair raising streets and I’m still half expecting to be taken to a diamond factory or a pearl factory but we arrive at the ponds and I pay the princely sum of $4 for rods and some dough. The place is a large series of concrete ponds were they grow fish for the markets and seems to only visited by local families and the water is pumped from a nearby running river. The families all sit around and share the catch afterwards with their hands which is cooked in the nearby kitchen.
 
The rods are long flexible plastic sticks with some mono line hanging off them down to a small float with a running leader and braid running to the hook and you dangle it in and watch the float and strike as they start to run with it. Even though the fish are contained it's actually quite difficult as the small ones suck the dough off the hook and I could only manage a dozen tiddlers but the oldest boy pulled in a nice size ‘snapper’ which went into the live bag and after we were done they fried it up in oil and brought it out with rice, sambal and soy sauce and we washed it down with a bintang for us and some sweet tea and lemonade for the boys. Ketut’s eyes lit up when I snapped off the head and shoulder meat and put it on his rice and watching him get every skerrick was like watching an artist at work. Back to the hotel and Ketut refused to take any money because he says I am a friend and we were his guests but I insist he take 500k and use it toward his ceremony the next day and he seems pretty stoked with that.
 
If we were ever going to get Bali belly this was going to be the place but we survived and it was an adventure I neither planned or anticipated but something that gave me an insight into Bali life I wouldn't see in the tourist areas and something the boys will remember forever.
 
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Honourary Pies member for a while

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Piranha for lunch. That’s a

Tue, 2019-05-14 12:51

Piranha for lunch. That’s a bit of a different experience.  

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Does anyone know where the love of god goes, when the waves turn the minutes to hours?

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Date Joined: 17/01/19

That looks fun

Tue, 2019-05-14 12:50

Looks like the young fella enjoyed that one. Sometimes the best memories are unplanned. They're pics to keep :)

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Living in Barradise!

still trying's picture

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Date Joined: 27/06/17

 looks like the kids had a

Tue, 2019-05-14 13:11

 looks like the kids had a good time.  I went to a stocked dam in Thailand with the kids but it was a tourist one we were catching 5 kg piranha and 5 to 10 kg catfish saw people catch bigger fish had a good time doing that with the misses and kids too was alot more expensive though.

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 rather be fishing

Faulkner Family's picture

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Date Joined: 11/03/08

 Thats what its about .

Tue, 2019-05-14 19:17

 Thats what its about . Seeing big smiles on the kids faces. 

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RUSS and SANDY. A family that fishes together stays together

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Date Joined: 03/05/06

great story

Wed, 2019-05-15 10:40

 That's a great story, very different from the usual Bali experience.  Life long memories for the kids.