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Extreme Fishing - Bung Sam Ran

Lamock Chokaprret

By Lamock Chokaprret,
in Trip Reports

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Lamock Chokaprret Newbie

Lamock Chokaprret

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Here is my trip report on this wonderful, alternate adult playground.

 

It was clear and sunny with mild temperatures. A telltale sign that cool season would shortly arrive in Bangkok. When we got there, my fishing partner and I were enthusiastic and anticipating a wild adventure. Once we got situated in our bungalow, our anticipation grew as we looked out over the water to see the cats surfacing to bask in the sunshine. They would roil the surface, scores every few minutes, showing off their dorsal fins and wiggling their tails as if to say, catch me if you can.

 

Anxious to get the preliminaries out of the way, our guide rushed to put the first line in the water. It took less than five minutes before we had a strike. I let my partner, he was a guest in town after all, take the first rod as the drag screamed and the yellow monofilament line was torn from the reel. He didn’t miss a beat, jumped on the rod and within fifteen minutes landed our first Mekong Catfish of the day. A hefty, fifteen kilogram cat so ugly only its mother could love it more than we did. This one bested his prior personal record by six kilos.

 

That became his assigned pole and the contest began. The second bait was cast and we waited. Not for too long though. A second strike, once again on my partner’s pole sang as the line was stripped into the murky waters. Another brief fight and this cat was landed. This time though, the slightly smaller cat only served to heighten our already keen senses to the fact that this was no ordinary fishing park.

 

Our helpful guide suggested that we move to a better bungalow, nearer to where most of the action was. That was fine with us as the sun was directly in our eyes anyway. So we packed our gear and trudged nearly halfway around the park, while the cats continued their foreplay, frolicking in the calm waters.

 

The score was two to one and I confess to being more than anxious to know when my time would come. Soon enough as it turned out. My wait probably seemed longer than it was, roughly thirty minutes or so. Then came my turn as my tackle first netted me a fifteen kilo cat, and then in rapid succession, a twenty kilo mother load that tied the score and took the record for size so far for the day. However we were barely an hour into our twelve hour fishing adventure. My big cat was also my personal, lifetime best catch.

 

This was fishing at its best. Only two fish each and our muscles were already telling the tale of the strain of the fight. Despite that, we both longed for the next strike. When would it come? Whose pole would it hit? When would the record catch of the day come in?

 

The strike, the screaming reels, the lunge for the pole, the fight, the landing and the photographs of the trophy came in rapid succession, the details blurring as we were landing cat after cat.

 

One incident stuck in my mind. One of my cats was making a long run. Too long as it turned out. It had nearly stripped the line completely off of my reel. I was too busy fighting the beast to notice but my guide pointed it out. Not a good thing as I wasn’t making any progress pulling this one in. The line continued to unwind until it reached the end and it tore from the reel. But instead of disappointment at the loss of my prize, instead I was shocked to realize that the end of the line had caught in one of the pole guides. As the fish continued to tug I fought back, loathe to lose the pole as the camp would charge me for it. Our guide, truly an expert at his trade, had already reeled in the other line and now proceeded to tie off my line to the second pole. Once the knot was secure, he handed me the second rod and after yet another extended fight, the twenty kilogram catfish lay sucking wind on the deck. I ended up landing three twenty kilogram cats that day.

The fish kept coming as my partner beat his personal best again, first with a thirty kilo and then a thirty five kilo catch.

 

As the day wore on, so did we, continuing to tire but our exhilaration continuing with the fun we were having. As it turns out, anyone that tells you fishing is about the thrill of the chase has never tried fishing in an aquarium stocked with the big boys. There isn’t much thrill in waiting, which is mostly what was fishing is about. Here the thrill is the fight and these Mekong Catfish have a lot of it.

 

We both needed a rest and were in need of trying something different. So we had our guide rig up for the giant Siamese Carp reputed to be swimming in these waters. If the cats are ugly, the Carps are magnificent. In the pictures we’d seen, they clearly were the beauties to the beasts that were the cats. Apparently the Carp are bottom dwellers as opposed to the cats that like the surface. So we cast one line to the Carps and waited.

 

It was my turn and the surface line took a strike. I grabbed the pole, hooked that bad boy and the fight was on. As my muscles screamed in agony over the exertion, I became aware that the other line was running out with a strike. My partner took up his position fighting a bottom dwelling monster that would not allow itself to be seen. Soon the guides were yelling “Carp, Carp!†and our fellow anglers in the adjoining bungalows began gawking as no one had seen a Carp yet that day. As I played with my fish, my partner was winning the good fight with his. Soon the Carp came to the surface, rolling on its sides showing off its beautiful scales. His catch was netted and brought on shore to reveal a forty kilo Carp, another personal record for him and as it turned out the catch of the day. On with the photos and back into the depths went the Carp, and all the while I continued fighting my twenty kilo cat. Eventually mine was landed and my trophy photograph was taken. What a fight! Mine was half the size of his but I fought it nearly twice as long.

 

Tried as I might that day, alas no Carp would allow me to have my way with him. A sad thing as I really was hoping for one. Instead the bottom lines came up repeatedly with another type of catfish, one the guides called “su-ay,†albeit hardly much more beautiful than the Mekongs and certainly a bit smaller running eight to fifteen kilos each. Each was a good fight though, possibly pound for pound a little better than the Mekongs. Or perhaps we were just getting more tired as the day wore on.

 

I did manage a thirty kilogram Mekong Cat before the day was through. My personal best, raising the bar and just making it so much sweeter for the next time I would return to the park.

 

Ours weren’t the biggest we saw though. One lucky guy two bungalows down nailed a seventy kilo Mekong Cat. And we were all much entertained by the guide to our left who jumped in the water to clear a line, moving down the line of bungalows past us with the pole, only to land a ninety kilogram monster cat five bungalows to our right. What a guy and what a show!

 

We each caught twelve fish that day. Together more than 470 kilograms of fish. We cut short our day by about three hours, after the mosquitoes decided we’d make a good dinner for them. But an impressive catch for nine hours of fishing, better than one fish per hour per man.

Now that is extreme fishing!

 

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Guest lazyphil

Guest lazyphil

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went august just gone, great fun. good account there thanks. if you get tired you can play pool, hungery get food delivered to your swim. fishing here is quite uncivilised after that experience!

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