News - 2012/13 - Fishing Khao Lak

News.

Fishing Khaolak News 2012 and 2013

Thailand Freshwater Fishing Report

Here is a roundup of the fishing trips and fishing news for 2012 and 2013.

Welcome to the Fishing-Khao Lak newsletter and a big thank you to all our
clients who made it such a great 2012-2013 season. This year we are celebrating
our 10th year as a Pro fishing company and look forward to another 10 great
years’ worth of guiding and providing our clients the best impartial advice and
guidance on the best fishing available in Thailand.

When we first started, we only had 3 freshwater fishing lakes on the website,
now there are 11 and I still have a few more to put on as well! Things have
changed so much since we first began and now anglers coming to fish in
Thailand are spoilt for choice. Having being involved with the Thai fishing
scene from the very early days it’s amazing how much the lakes have
progressed and the quality and standard that is now available and not just in
Phuket and Bangkok, areas like Krabi and Hua Hin now have excellent fishing
lakes as well.

Lakes new on the website available from Bangkok, Hua Hin and Cha Am are
Bangkok Predator Lake, Greenfield Valley, Jurassic Fishing Park and a new
updated version for Palm Tree Lagoon. Click the names to check out the full
web pages. All these 4 lakes are available as a day trip. They are also available
as part of a road trip, either from Bangkok, Hua Hin or starting from Phuket, but
more about that later..

In the South of Thailand the fishing scene has received a massive boost. Our
fishing destination in Krabi has had a large extension making it one of the
biggest quality fishing lakes in Thailand. There are also some new species to be
added and stocks of other species already in the lake are being increased. The
growth rate of the fish in this lake is incredible, the size of the Arapaima is
frightening and the Giant Siamese Carp are putting on weight faster than a fat
lady at an all you can eat buffet!

The big news in the South of Thailand is the opening of a new fishery and soon
to be resort, Exotic Fishing Thailand. In this part of the country we are blessed
with beautiful scenery, but the location of this large lake has to be seen to be
believed. The lake is surrounded by huge jungle covered mountains that come
down almost to the lakes edge and tower up into the clouds. This lake has been
2 years in the making and all that time more than 50 different species have been
growing to huge sizes in stock ponds. With one of the highest stocking levels of
Arapaima and multiple different catfish species and Carp species, this lake even
at this early stage is already competing as one of the very best fisheries in
Thailand.

Early fishing results have been very good as expected when a new lake opens,
and so far all clients guided by us have all landed at least 1 Arapaima in a day!
John from Indonesia landed several Arapaima like this one, and also landed 3
Julian’s Golden Price Carp in 3 casts! Here is a photo of one of the best fish.

Joko and his family shared a 4 Arapaima in a day catch with fish like this one.

Giles from the UK and owner of Barlow’s Aquatics in Accrington had a
fantastic time at the lake and currently holds the record for the most Arapaima
in a day which at the moment is 5 like this one here. He also landed some very
exotic species like Tambaqui, Paraiba, Yellow Cheek Carp here, Julian’s Golden
Price Carp and Ripsaw Catfish. Giles was telling me the Latin name of all the
species before they were even in the net!

This lake has been very well planned out and careful consideration has been
given for fly-fishing. Unlike some of the other lakes in Thailand there is lots of room
for back-casting in most areas of the lake. There are lots of species to target on
fly, and so far we have already taken Arapaima here, Alligator Gar here, Bamboosa
(Yellow Cheek Carp / Seerfish) here, Pacu here, Java Barb and Tilapia on the fly here.
We have also hooked Arawana, but lost them when they jumped and spat the hook.
Other great sport fish desired by fly fishermen that are stocked include
Barramundi, Tarpon and Nile Perch.

With all these fantastic fisheries available, it’s easy to forget about the great
wild fishing we have available. These days most anglers are opting for the
commercial lakes so the fishing pressure is very low for the jungle fishing and
results have greatly improved. Another reason the fishing has improved is that
they have been keeping the levels in the dams lower than normal because of the
wide scale flooding in Thailand. This has provided much larger than normal
breeding grounds and also due to the inaccessibility of these grounds due to
water levels the fish stocks have greatly benefited and more importantly so has
the fishing! The last 2 seasons have been the best for several years and it looks
like this is set to continue. Check out this amazing photograph of what
happened to a small Giant Snakehead we had just hooked on a surface lure. I
would love to have caught the beast that was responsible, just looking at the bite
radius it must have taken the fish from behind taking over half the fish in its
mouth before biting clean through! David who caught the fish didn’t see or feel
anything while fighting the fish. If you are interested in this wonderfully
satisfying type of angling, click here to check out the details. We offer lure
fishing and fly-fishing at this destination targeting several Snakehead species,
Jungle Perch and Mahseer.

Check out some of these photos of the wild fish we have been catching in the
jungle: Giant Snakehead here, here, here, here, Cobra Snakehead here,
Blotched Snakehead here, Mahseer here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,
Hampala Barb here.

Bangkok Predator Lake has been extended and still after 2 years all of our
guided clients have all caught at least 1 Arapaima when fishing this lake. Colin
from the UK gave my new 12# weight Sage fly-rod a good workout when he
landed this monster on it as part of a 6 Arapaima one day catch. He also landed
Alligator Gar, Amazon Redtail Catfish, Cheow Phraya Catfish, Pacu and Tiger
Cross Catfish. My old friend Peter from Holland broke his fly caught personal
best when he landed this 28 kilo Cheow Phraya
Catfish and managed this Giant Snakehead as well. Peter from Rumania and his
son had a really good day. Their main target was Arapaima and this was
achieved several times over. Here is a pic of the 11 year old with this monster, a
very happy young man and a great angler as well. We also landed Alligator Gar,
Redtails, Tigers and Pacu.

Here is a photo of Derek from Liverpool in the UK with his best Arapaima of
the day, another one of our clients who caught the magical number of 6
Arapaima in a day at this incredible lake!

Andy Cartwright from the UK and David Pollock from Australia both made
road trips in November 2012 and both anglers returned in May and June to do
another! Starting off in either Phuket, Krabi, Hua Hin or Bangkok we travel to
any lake of your choice for as many days as you like. We are very flexible
depending on bookings at the lakes and if we find a lake is fishing particularly
well (or badly!) it is sometimes possible to fish more or less days and change
the itinerary. Between them they racked up an amazing 40 different species!
Some of the high lights were an estimated 400 lbs Arapaima from Krabi, part of
a 4 Arapaima in a day catch for Andy. This fish went berserk and smashed the
landing cage to pieces after being unhooked. We didn’t get a photo, but the fight
is recorded on video which will be uploaded to the website in the future. One of
my favourite species that is very difficult to catch, here the Wallagoo Leary fell to
Andy. He also successfully landed 2 Arawana that we stalked and cast to. We
only got a photo of this one of them because the other jumped out of Andy’s hands
while taking the photo. Here is a pic of Andy with a massive Arapaima caught
just after it went dark.
David broke his personal best Arapaima here, Giant Mekong
Catfish and also this incredibly huge 20 kilo+ Pacu also at Krabi. This same
session produced 3 Julian’s Golden Price Carp here, here, here and this other
Arapaima. David also lost a huge Arapaima as well, but was over the moon with his
catch. I would also like to mention the extraordinary effort made by 2 of the
guides at Krabi who helped us to land the Giant Mekong Catfish. This fish took almost
2 hours to land and because I had an injury to my arm Joel and Rob helped David
with the fight instead. David is 64 and has breathing problems, so after about 1
hour of fighting he was very tired. The fish had swam into the bay and there
was a risk of the line getting damaged around a bend in the lake, so Rob swam
across the lake to the other side carrying the rod with this huge Mekong still
attached! We went around to the other side and David continued the fight for a
while before handing the over to Joel exhausted from the fight. Joel fights
Mekong really hard, pushing himself and the equipment to the limit. Even so it
still took another 50 minutes before David took the rod again and we slipped the
net under this beauty. Bangkok Predator Lake is still performing fantastically
well and is a favourite for the Road Trip. This year Andy landed an incredible
13 Arapaima in 1 day plus lots of other species. This is to my knowledge the
highest catch of Arapaima in a single day in Thailand. You can check out this
photo of Andy holding up 10 fingers to signify the 10th Arapaima of the day. He
ran out of fingers for the next 3!

On the road trips we also fished at another brand new lake located in the Cha
Am area of Thailand, 45 minutes from Hua Hin and 1.75 hours from Bangkok.
Jurassic Mountain Fishing Park and Resort is a really nice fishery, a good sized
lake in beautiful surroundings with a high catch rate for Carp here and predator
species. Bungalows are available onsite for anglers fishing multi days. Here we
caught lots of Giant Siamese Carp and also Cutler Carp (an Indian carp very
similar to the Giant Siamese Carp). The action was non-stop and we also landed
lots of Amazon Redtail Catfish here here and also this good sized Arapaima.

This year we also returned to Palm Tree Lagoon. We had not fished this lake for
a few years due to a few small problems with the previous owners, but now
under new management this lake has now become one of the very best fisheries
in Thailand and currently holds the most number of fish species (over 70 and
counting!) and also the most world IGFA records in Thailand. This is one of the
most pleasant lakes to fish, extremely friendly staff and the great thing is that
you can’t predict what the next fish is going to be, it could be something crazy
like a Firewood Catfish or a massive Arapaima like this one. This was part of a
3 Arapaima catch that also included this other huge Arapaima for Magnus from
Sweden and his 2 sons. Along with the common species that are present at most
lakes, we have landed some very interesting species such as this Ripsaw Catfish,
this Black Shark, Thai Catfish Shark, this Julian’s Golden Price Carp, Tambaqui,
Alligator Gar, this Arapaima, Cheow Phraya Catfish, Wallagoo, Mirgal, Hoven’s
Carp, Giant Freshwater Stingray, this Vundu Catfish, Firewood Catfish, Paraiba,
Zungaroo Catfish and Marbled Catfish. The carp fishing has been spectacular
with fish like this, this, this, this, this and this coming to Andy.
Most days we fished here usually resulted in at least 1 very big Carp
being landed, and more often than not, several big ones.
A recent stocking has just taken place of 3 very big Giant
Siamese Carp, the largest being an IGFA record breaking 63 kilos!

We have now added 3 new boats for the saltwater fishing from Phuket. We now
have a 6m centre console for jigging and popping suitable for up to 3 anglers
available for day trips. M/V Sailfish 1 and M/V Sailfish 2 are suitable for day
trips, 24 hour trips or multi-day trips. M/V Sailfish 2 is now the boat that we are
going to be using for our long range fishing trips to the Andaman Islands. Click
the links for all the detailed information.

Well unfortunately that’s all I’ve got time for to put in the newsletter at the
moment. I have very many photos and reports to add, but time has run out. I
have tried to cover as much as I could of the most important news in the short
time I had available to do this report. I will try and get some more information
online as and when I get the time. Now it’s time to continue with what we do
best, guiding our clients to spectacular catch results around all the best fishing
lakes in Thailand…

We look forward to seeing you, so until then,

Tight Lines!

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