Thailand part 3: Bangkok lakes

On 26^th  of March it was time to tight the lines again. We had booked two days fishing at the most famous fishing spot at Thailand. Bungsamran is a manmade lake in the middle of the city. It’s stocked full of catfish, different  kind of carp and even arapaimas. Somebody has said that there’s over 50 species of fish at the lake….

The entrance of Bungsamran.

On the first day our target was to catch two of the biggest catfish species there. The Giant Mekong catfish can reach a weight of over hundred kilos and the Striped catfish tops somewhere about 30 kilos. We had two rods out and we took turns to fight a fish.

The first fight is on...

The end tackle we used. Notice that the hook is without a bait.

After the days (about six hours) hard work Jarno had landed seven and I six catfish. First we thought that all our fish were Mekong catfishes but when I was checking my photos back home I noticed that two of my fishes were actually Striped catfishes. I caught two nice Mekongs of about 40 and 35 kilos. Jarno did not took pictures about his smallest fishes so there’s a good chance he caught some Striped ones too.

Striped catfish (Pangasianodon hypophthalmus) of about 12 kilos.

Fighting a monster.

My biggest of the day. Giant Mekong catfish (Pangasianodon gigas).

We had a slightly different tactics for the second day. Our target now was Giant Siamese carp the biggest species of carp in the world. We had two rods out again but this time the bait was laying at the bottom without a float. When nothing happened in a first couple of hours (carp are more active at the morning) our guide left the other rod for carp and we started to fish for catfish with the other one again.

Awaiting of bite. See the bait alarm on the left from the rod...

We had only two runs at the carp rod and at the both of the times it was Jarno’s fighting turn. First battle ended well when Jarno caught his first ever (for sure) Striped catfish. The second fish ran off but our guide said that it was probably a catfish too.

Jarno is playing a guitar with a Striped catfish.

We landed seven Mekongs and one Striped catfish each. The average weight of my mekongs was about 25 kilos and Jarno’s even bigger cause he caught two fish of about 40 kilos.

That's a nice fish.

So, the Bugsamran lake gave us only two new species each. With a lighter tackle it would be possible to catch much more. But hey, it was “fun” to catch several big fish in the heat of 40 degrees….

Our guide caught a Java barb while checking our baits.

That was official part of our fishing holiday at Thailand but since we had couple of days to spent before our flight back home we decided to visit one more place.

On the very next day we hopped in to taxi and headed to New Paytai pond nearby the Suvarnabhumi airport. It a small manmade pond where it’s only allowed to fish with pole rods. They actually have two different ponds from which the other one is stocked with different species of carp and tilapia and the other one is called predator lake with catfish and snakehead in it.

The New Paytai pond.

We fished only at the pole fishing pond and groundbaited it heavily. Still we had only few bites and every single time the fish outsmarted us. They even took off or broke our lines. At least we could see several fish landed by the local competition fishermen. I just think our travel whip rods were not made for this kind of fishing….

Local fisherman fights a Bighead carp. Look how flexible his rod is...

...and he caught a nice carp.

All in all our vacation was awesome and I managed to catch 18 new fish species plus two still unidentified species. Thanks Jarno for planning our trip and for the crew and guides of FishSiam!