Bread and Bananas

Well I finally did it. I have been planning to do it since we were in Mexico, but it took our trip to Thailand to finally do it. No I am not talking about feeding an elephant. I went fishing. I have always loved fishing, but I haven’t gone fishing for more than five years. When I am travelling I always stare at every body of water and wonder what is swimming there. Well, on our second last day in Thailand we went to the Jomtien Fishing Park. But before we did that we went to one of our new favourite restaurants, Simple Simon. There we ate a traditional British Sunday Lunch of Roast Beef or Pork, Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes and gravey. Filled to the bursting point we left to go fishing.

We walked up to the man at the counter and after paying 440 baht (about 15 dollars) the guide took us to the water’s edge. Along one side of the lake was a long covered area with picnic tables. My guide mixed up all of the bait in the bucket. The bait was breadcrumbs with two types of fruit flavoured attractants. The final mix smelled like bananas. He rigged up my rod and even cast it out into the water for me. After loosening the drag on the reel I went to sit on the bench to wait. I was wondering how long it would take when the reel started to sing. It had been less than a minute. Now normally you wonder what could be on the other end of the line but here at the park I knew it was a Mekong Catfish. It took me maybe 5-7 minutes to land the fish.

All I can say is wow. I loved it. I was sweating, excited and smiling as my guide re-rigged my rod and cast it out again. With hardly a chance to catch my breath the reel started screaming again and I landed another one. Five years with no fish and now two in 15 minutes. It was so easy and quick that after that I was determined to do it all myself. “This is like shooting fish in a barrel”, I thought. I was not able to match his prowess, but after many failed attempts and a lot of waiting I caught my largest fish of the day. The fish seemed to average around 8-10 Kg with my largest being maybe 12Kg. A Russian lady just down from us landed a whopper, 17-20 Kg. How big can this fish get? Well the largest Mekong Catfish caught in Thailand was 300Kg and some fishing parks near Bangkok have fish over 140Kg.

It was a blast and I hope to have the opportunity to do it again someday. I can’t tell you all how grateful I am that June volunteered to spend one of her last days in Thailand fishing with me. She never touched the rod but she did land some with the net, get the beer and take all the pictures. Thank you June for the wonderful Day.

P.S. After three or four hours and 6 or seven fish we called it a day.


Here are the pics from the day:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22798130@N07/sets/72157625946661163/