Guest Report
This months catch report is written by Timothy Seah from Singapore, a young and enthusiastic angler also pictured in the above gallery:
Landing Fish Bigger And Heavier Than Me
By Timothy Seah (Age 11)
When my Dad (Victor) took us - Nicholas (age 5) and myself Timothy (age 11) to Bungsamran Lake and IT Lake Monsters for a fishing holiday guided by Fish Thailand, little did I expect what was in store for us -
Day One - Bungsamran Lake
We setup three rods - one for Nicholas (for the small Tilapia), one for the regular Mekong Catfish, and one for the larger size Mekong Catfish and Giant Siamese Carp.
After a few minutes, a Mekong Catfish took our bait. I tried landing the fish but failed as the fish was too big (when Dad eventually landed the fish, it was about 55 pounds).
After I had a few more failed attempts (the Mekong Catfish were just too heavy), we decided to switch tactics to catch the smaller Striped Catfish. It was a little easier and I managed to land a few catfish in the 25-35 pound range.
In the meanwhile, there was no action on the smaller rod as the Tilapia were not biting - we managed to find a small sucker fish, put it on the hook and let Nicholas "land" it, making him happy. Dad also helped Nicholas with a few Striped Catfish.
After a period of time, we decided to fish for Mekong Catfish again as I was determined to land a Mekong Catfish (having practiced my fishing technique with a few Striped Catfish). The line went again very soon after we put the rod in and after 30 minutes of a painful battle, I managed to land my first Giant Mekong Catfish by myself, which at a whopping 65 pounds, weighed more than me! Dad also managed to land a few more Mekong Catfish, the largest around 85 pounds.
Unfortunately, the rod baited for the larger Mekong Catfish and Giant Siamese Carp did not have any action, just a few smaller Striped Catfish disturbed our bait, but it was still a great day's fishing with around 20 fishes landed!
Day Two - IT Lake Monsters
After the great fishing during Day One and having to leave the hotel at 6:30am for the journey to IT Lakes, I was tired and not sure what to expect. Almost immediately after putting the rods out in the lake, we got a strike landing my first Redtail Catfish of the day. This set the scene for the day, as we had an actioned packed day, landing around 40 fishes of many different species for the day - Redtail Catfish to 40 pounds, Snakehead to 20 pounds, Barramundi to 25 pounds, Asian Redtail Catfish to 35 pounds, Alligator Gar to 20 pounds, Pacu to 10 pounds, and a very rare and exotic Walagoo estimated at 20 pounds.
Towards the end of the day, we tried putting in dead bait for the world's most beautiful freshwater species - the Tiger Catfish (but we were not successful as there were too many Alligator Gars taking our bait), and fishing in the weeds for Arapaima.
Just as we were about the pack up, an Arapaima finally took the bait, and my Dad managed to land it, estimated around the 90 pound mark. It was breathtaking watching the Arapaima try and throw the hook with it's head shaking moves! I also caught my largest Redtail Catfish with my last cast, making it a perfect ending to a perfect fishing day.
We had two incredible days of catching - I have now learnt the huge difference between catching and fishing - approximately 60 fishes of 10 different species totaling more than 1,500 pounds! We are already talking about going back soon - I still want to land the elusive Tiger Catfish, and Dad wants to land a Carp over 100 pounds - but Dad says that I have to hit my KPI's at school first (whatever that means). Many thanks to Eddie and Fish Thailand and the Fishing Guides Alley and Golf for making these two days very fun, very exciting, and very memorable!
