Fishing Thailand

[cmc]

My wife loves visiting Thailand, she was born in the US but has family there so on the last trip I scheduled four days of fishing and it’s some of the most amazing fishing anywhere I think. Thailand is kind of the Wild West as far as importing fish apparently because there are fish from all over the world in these lakes. We also did some wild river fishing that took us through some pretty amazing country. I would recommend it to anybody who loves fishing. We stationed out of Bangkok and fished in areas within a couple hours drive. Bangkok is a pretty amazing city if you like cities. People are great, food is beyond great, easy to get around and cheap. Here’s a few pics. I think we caught 17 different species total between the two of us in 4 days.

 

[BRICKBURN]

Those are some monsters.
Pretty incredible variety of species.
Thanks for sharing the adventure.

 

[gillettehunter]

Love the variety. Some big fish too. I have only been to Thailand 1 time and wished I had time to fish. Didn't make the time and now I can see that I should of. Thanks for sharing.
Bruce

 

[firehuntfish]

Definitely a cool adventure! Thanks for posting.

 

[cpr0312]

Congrats!!! Some nice ones there, thanks for sharing!

 

[ThomasBeaham]

Excellent.
Thanks again for posting this.
Out of curiosity, what tackle/bait were the catfish caught with?

 

[cmc]

Excellent.
Thanks again for posting this.
Out of curiosity, what tackle/bait were the catfish caught with?

The Mekongs which are the top pic and the one my wife is holding were caught on a dough bait made from bread and rice meal, they are not meat eaters. The meal was mixed with bread as a binder and made into a huge ball and the hooks are on short leaders outside the ball with small pieces of bread on them. The idea is when the huge fish inhale to get to the dough the hook being lighter goes in first and hooks the fish.

The amazon redtail, black and white one, was on half a chicken and the choa phraya catfish, bottom pic, and the Asian red tail, second pic, were both caught using a live walking catfish about 16” long.

The gear as you can expect is pretty big, huge spinning reels with 50 pound braid and very short stout rods. All the guides there seem to prefer a short rod I assume because casting distances are short you don’t need the longer rods. The choa phraya catfish was a battle that lasted over half an hour and these are probably the fastest catfish I’ve ever fought. Each species has a different style of fight and it didn’t take long to learn by the fight what I had hooked. The only thing that really surprised me was the pacu, not pictured, I’ve caught a lot of species of salt and fresh water fish and the big pacu covered water faster than anything I’ve ever hooked. They swap directions and run like no fish I’ve fought. The fight didn’t last that long but covered water more than any fish.

All the carp species were caught with some form of dough or pack bait usually rice meal or some kind of fish pellet mixed. Most of the carp fought like any other carp Ive caught here in the US. They fight hard and have stamina. The Juliens Pride Golden carp, the striped one pictured, had the hardest initial strike of any carp. Your rod would go from dead still to losing feet of line in seconds. The gear for the smaller carp species was standard spinning gear with medium heavy rods that any bass fisherman would have.

 

[ThomasBeaham]

Okay full disclosure, I was actually a little more than curious
It's really neat to get a peek into a part of the world we don't often see.
Thanks.

I share your affinity for these fish with shoulders. My interest might actually border on addiction l.o.l.

 

[cmc]

Okay full disclosure, I was actually a little more than curious
It's really neat to get a peek into a part of the world we don't often see.
Thanks.

I share your affinity for these fish with shoulders. My interest might actually border on addiction l.o.l.

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That’s awesome. If big catfish and carp are your thing then Thailand would be paradise. We caught a couple carp species I didn’t even know existed and the Thai guide only knew the names in Thai so I had to look them up. There are dozens of native catfish species from a couple pounds to Mekongs which can go upwards of 300.

 

[CEO]

Very cool. Without River Monsters I wouldn't know a lot of these fish existed. I have reeled in quite a few carp on an arrow though.

 

[cagkt3]

Very cool trip!

 

[Royal27]

Yeah, that would be more than a little fun.

Thanks for sharing something different with us!