Best fishing trip of my life!

[ihunter 44]

Had an awesome couple of days on a lake in Thailand this January called “exotic fishing Thailand” about an hr away from Phuket and set in absolutely stunning settings, literally like being in a scene from Jurassic park! The lake holds monster catfish, stingrays, carp and the fish I really wanted arapaima. I’d seen the photos, read the reviews and all looked good but nothing could prepare me for the state of the place when I got there. A quick walk round the lake had my mouth watering at the sport that lay ahead of me for the next two days!

I woke up at 6.30am to this view!

 

and promptly made my way to my peg for the lake side breakfast and to get the rods out.

For the first few hours, nothing happened, it just got hotter by the min while the arapaima were slapping the water above my bait, teasing me that they were going for it! Huge, gaping mouths of giant Siamese carp were everywhere taking bugs off the surface but for 5 hours not a bite.......suddenly I had a run and after a short fight a small redtail catfish was in the net (by small I mean 20lb) at least I wasn’t blanking......a few more of these cats later and it starts to cool down as the sun sets behind the mountains, as the shadow slowly covers the lake, it becomes a hive of activity now the fish are on the move......the  Australian guy on the peg to my left has been here 3 days and not caught an arapaima, I’m only here for two days so it’s not what I want to be hearing! He is listening to the cricket on his phone, when all of a sudden I see him running to his rods and when he strikes his rod hardly lifts up! Instantly we knew he was on to something huge, the guides all came over and for the next 30 mins the Aussie wrestled with around 250lb of Mekong catfish! He was a fit lad, was really good at jujitsu and in Thailand to learn Muay Thai but he was absolutely Knackered after! 
 

After all the commotion had died off, I re cast all my rods for the last couple of hours and I caught a Siamese carp around 70lb and a nice redtail catfish at around 90lb 

Both personal bests so I was happy but as we called it a day when it got to dark, I was a little gutted I never hooked into a monster like the Aussie had! 
 

After a good nights sleep, I was up early again and in my peg for 7am......the Aussie had gone back to Phuket and no one else was fishing my side of the lake that day so I had the whole corner swim plus the Aussies swim which he had been baiting up for three days so I hired two extra rods and went all in for an arapaima......on one of the extra rods, the guide set up a system where he used a massive ball of ground bait (about the size of two cricket balls) a really long hook tracer and then on the hook some foam to make it float. The ball of ground bait sits in the floor and the hook floats above it then a shoal of little fish will come and eat the ground bait and the arapaima will strike at the shoal which should hopefully have your hook floating nicely between them so they pick that up as well, pulling the line which has a weight on to hit the ground bait and hook them. Again the morning was ridiculously hot so I spent most of it in the shade of my hut on the peg just relaxing and enjoying the views and watching the different wildlife to what we have here

A few more red tails, an African catfish I can’t remember the name of and again as the sun drops behind the mountain the lake comes alive and my rod right over the spot where the Aussie had caught the cat goes flying off.......I run up, lift the rod, strike and instantly knew I was into something big as again it hardly moved! It swam right out to the middle and my guide instantly knew it was a Siamese carp, bit gutted again but I knew it was a good size one so all was good and after about 20 mins I pulled a nice 100lb+ Siamese into the cage.

 

I tried my best to lift it for better photos but it was struggling like f**k and was a lot stronger than I anticipated so it was gone about 1 sec after the photo! 
 

Now this was all good, I was happy enough smashing my carp and catfish PB to bits but I really wanted an arapaima so for the last few hours all my roads were set up for one. Chicken livers on one rod, dead bait on another, giant pellets on the 3rd and the huge ball of ground bait on the last. With about 1hr left to go I didn’t think it wouldnt happen but never gave up hope.....I could see the people on the other side packing up for the day and my guide looked at me to start getting mine in.......I started reeling the rod with ball of ground bait in when all of a sudden something struck at the ball and my rod was bent double! My guide threw his rod on the ground and started blowing his whistle for the other guides to come, saying to me “arapaima, arapaima” getting me even more excited! For about 30 mins I was fighting the beast I had come for, trying to win every inch of slack off the fish but I just couldn’t tire it out, I got to the bank twice and it started violently shaking f**k out of line with its head out the water as if to say “I’m not even half tired yet” sweating, baking, out of breath, mosquitos having a free for all everywhere the could and a crowd of 7 people watching me I finally got the beast in the cage and jumped straight in the lake to cool off! It really topped off an amazing couple of days I was (still am) made up to catch a fish I’d wanted for many years! They don’t weigh them everytime they are caught cause of the stress of getting them out the water but last time out it weighed 225lb so give or take 20lb either way.......

Would definitely recommend exotic fishing if your over that part of the world, The famous uk fisherman John Wilson was good friends with the owner before he sadly died over there and had a lot to do with creating the lake and fished it regularly as well as his own so that’s the level of planning gone into it and everything about the whole set up was top class!

 just thought I’d share something a bit different and thanks for reading 
 

 

Edited September 5, 2020 by ihunter

[kanny 19,389]

Wow looks amazing thanks for sharing...just made my bucket list a little longer lol

[dytkos 17,536]

12 hours ago, Balaur said:

Nice write up, I had biggest fish at the comp this year so know how you must have felt....you know it's a good days fishing if you're moaning about a 100lb carp. Atb Joe

But you don't like to talk about it

Cheers, D.

[bell 3,504]

Great report and pics mate, you the fella I was messaging a while back about travelling round Asia ?

[j j m 6,481]

wow very nice bud

[NEWKID 26,201]

Great write up.mate and cracking fish