Has Banda been fished out??

[CWK]

Not true in Cocos. I just sit on the rock (literally) and watch the parade of hammerheads passing by. Don't feel guilty sitting on the rock, as it is just rock, not much coral there.

Different places are different. For example, you will have been to Manuk. When I dived Manuk in October, there were sea snakes and sharks. But when I dived Manuk in November ad December, there were sea snakes but no sharks were to be seen. I believe you are aware of the reason for this.

What have you heard about being in Banda January, February and March? Sounds like the wrong time of the year.

Have not heard anything about that time of year.

 

[NootFish]

Thanks for all the feedback, guys.

I suppose timing could be an issue at play in my friend's experience. It seems that all dive reports I've seen have been in the Sept-Nov time frame (not surprising as that's supposedly peak hammer season).

My friend dove Banda in either April or May of last year. Has anyone been diving there in spring, rather than fall?

I was there April-May last year, and will be going back this year. There were some dives where I could not imagine seeing more fish than I did (and then the next dive there were more). Not huge fish, but we were on the reef not in the blue. There were sharks, there were hammerheads. There were rays and mantas on occasion. Huge schools of jacks. Schools of barracuda. School of bumphead parrot fish. The dynamite scarred reefs are sad, but those are the exception, not the rule.

 

[Dan]

@stphnmartin just posted his Banda Sea trip video in this thread YouTube Channels

See how bad Banda has been fished out.

 

[billt4sf]

@stphnmartin just posted his Banda Sea trip video in this thread YouTube Channels

See how bad Banda has been fished out.

Horrible! Dan, can I have my money back?

Bill

 

[Dan]

Horrible! Dan, can I have my money back?

Bill

 

[billt4sf]

 

[Dan]

 

[acidrush]

@stphnmartin just posted his Banda Sea trip video in this thread YouTube Channels

See how bad Banda has been fished out.

None of the fish in the video were high value "food" fish (eg. those served in a Chinese restaurant like dish sized groupers, snappers and coral trouts). You hardly see them anymore in most Asian reefs.

 

[Dan]

None of the fish in the video were high value "food" fish (eg. those served in a Chinese restaurant like dish sized groupers, snappers and coral trouts). You hardly see them anymore in most Asian reefs.

 

[CWK]

Thank you very much China for your ravenous appetite for such seafood, including the shark fin soup with careless environmentally sustainable attitude. In not too distant future your 1.42 billion people with plenty money in your hands would wipe out those fish existence on earth in no time.

Fish are taken not just for food and America is playing a role in depletion of fish stocks in Indonesia.
How Tropical Fish Get From Coral Reefs to Your Aquarium

Most of the fishing that I saw around Banda Neira was for tuna. When I was there 30 years ago, there was a Japanese refrigeration ship anchored in the harbour throughout my stay there. At that time, the local fisherman would fish for tuna with hand lines from little one man sampans and sell their catch to the refrigeration ship.

I saw a fishing boat at Batu Kapal when I was there last October and they were catching a lot of tuna with the pole and line method (about a dozen guys at the front of the boat with poles and line, and tuna biting every couple of seconds). It was during that visit in October that I saw the tuna whilst diving. I saw neither the fishermen nor the tuna during my visits to Batu Kapal in November and December last year. The local fishermen knew that the fish would not be there during the moon phase and tide combination but LOB schedules can’t accommodate such considerations for all dive sites during a trip.

Tuna is a high value fish, but I think the market is more Japan and the west. It’s not just the Chinese who eat fish.

Furthermore I think seafood is not part of the normal diet of Chinese from the inland provinces of China. And citing 1.42 billion Chinese with lots of money is probably quite inaccurate as quite a few hundred million of them would not have much money.