My 13 day Thai fishing adventure (day four)

[SIMPLE MAN]

Jules picks me up this morning at 7.30 and i am pleased to hear that Cha Am fishing park is only about twenty mins drive,On arrival Jules cant believe it the owner has dropped the level of the predator lake by 8-9ft,At this point i had better tell you Cha Am fishing park is really a motel and the fishing lakes are really just a after thought as in many of the Thai fishing lakes they are not very well thought out,The main lake has concrete planks set on steel supports from where you fish so any cunning fish when hooked if you are not careful could run under them and snag or snap you up,Sooner or later maybe the Thais will realise that there is more to a fishery than just stocking huge fish in their lakes and what will be will be,Anyway more on that later,apparently the owner has dropped the water level on his second lake to aid his workers in laying pipes or electric cables,So i am now going to fish this lake for fish that could quite easily top 200lbs from a bank with vertical sides all the way round about 10-12ft(INTERESTING)
All around the lake all i can see is huge swirls and big fish rising every where,my rod is baited with a small dead bait and we are off,after 10 mins Jules spots a arapaima right underneath us and only 5ft out the bait is quickly retrieved and dropped on its nose WHOOOOOSH fish on for the first 5mins everything is OK and although putting up a good fight it is behaving itself and staying out in the middle of the lake but after that it decides that it would decide to go along 40-50yrds and hug the near bank oh no surely not can i really be this unlucky i walk 15-20yrds along the bank and for the next 10min its touch and go but slowly and surely i start to make line and get the fish a few yards away from the bank and coming towards me,my two guides have now scrambled down the bank at the point where the fish was first hooked and it seems all i have got to do is gently play this fish a further 10yrds back and i have got my trophy,it still managed to find the strength for one more short run and a couple of those dreaded rolls but this time we had it in the net and this one was not going to get away,all the frustration of the last 3 days was gone in a instant,
For those of you that have taken a look at my photos in my album on this site you would probably agree that as a fuller figured chap scaling 12ft high banks is not my strong point and if there was someone with a video camera about my efforts would probably of ended up on youtube lol but who cares a fish of between 120-130lbs was in the net and i was like a kid in a sweet shop yessssssss i was now in the water with this beautiful fish photos taken and safely released all that remained was the bank climb which if i have to say so myself was expertly done although Jules and my two guides might not quite agree hhhhmmmmmmm a celebratory can of pepsi and assurance to my two guides that a nice tip was to be had at the end of the day (that brought a big smile to their face)and bring it on lets catch another
About a hour later the line was going again but this wasn't a big fish but a tiger of 2lb but really pretty but with some nasty spines 30mins later i had a really timid take which turned out to be a small alligator gar of 2lb (nasty toothed critter) and as i was to learn through out my holiday very finicky bites it seemed to go quiet for a couple of hours before again my line started to slowly peel off again in what i was now used to as very arapaima like i wound down and struck and sure enough there was something of reasonable size on the other end which turned out to be another arapaima this one was well behaved and stayed out in the middle of the lake for 15mins or so before tiring and coming in towards me and my guides that were now down the bank with net in hand,a further 5mins and a fish of about 90lbs had one last roll a couple of yards out and pop it was gone,to be honest although disappointed it wasn't as big as my first one and although would still of made a cracking photo the thought of me again trying to descend down the bank it some how didn't seem to matter that much after all at least i had my photo and it wasn't one of the really big ones that we had seen rolling during the course of the day,Jules said he couldn't quite believe what had happened as 5 of the 6 arapaima that i had lost i had got to the bank even getting 1 in the net before losing them,I told him not to worry after all the biggest one that i had hooked was landed and i had my photo,
After the the lake went quiet for a hour or so before i got a small pacu of 6lb another alligator gar 4lb and then what turned out to be my biggest alligator gar of the trip 20lbshttp://www.fishing-forum.info/picture.php?albumid=848&pictureid=3141 followed by a small pacu 3lb and yet another gar of 2lb,No more fish but i was still on a high,as we packed up to go back to the hotel Jules said we would be returning here tomorrow but this time on the other lake targeting the notoriously difficult Gahore (Siamese Carp) i think that he maybe hoped that i should of landed one of my earlier arapaima so we could of had 5 days and not just the 3 left to target these fish which have been caught in the past to over 110 kilos at some of the fishing parks,now that's what i call a carp
sorry guys but my son at work so photos are still only on my album please take a look and tell me what you think




regards Simple man

[geejayy]

nice fish