THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

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My final day was to a

My final day was to a fishery which Eddie normally uses to kick a week long booking off, and to close with. A lake where back then he was offering a money back guarantee if you didn't catch a fish topping forty pounds. How many fisheries dare make an offer like that. Bungsamran right in suburbs of Bangkok city justifiably can. This is quite a large lake surrounded by open fronted bungalows with fishing platforms looking out on to the water. Essentially, the fishing is either for mekong catfish or siamese carp, both of which can easily top one hundred pounds at this particular venue. The lake record carp if my memory serves me right is something like 264 pounds. On the flip side, siamese carp are neither numerous nor are they easy to catch, so the majority of people tend to concentrate on the mekong cats. There are also some huge arapaima in this lake, which as air breathers, you will see topping here and there over the course of the day. Not that you are liable to catch them, as both the carp and the cats are vegetarians, whereas the arapaima are strict carnivores. You can't deliberately fish for them there either. After some unfortunate historical incidents in which large arapaima died, deliberate fishing for them was stopped, which is a pity, as some of the specimens that have been left to munch their way through the many smaller bait fish the lake also contains, are now up in the many hundreds of pounds. Phill Williams, Giant Featherback Pound for pound, I would rate mekong catfish as the hardest fighting freshwater fish I have ever come across anywhere. The nearest comparison I can make is a big powerful tuna. They never give up, have immense reserves of power, and they stay deep, tearing off line right until the moment they are engulfed by the landing net. Worse still, some would run straight at you and swim between the wooden stoops holding up the fishing platform which meant they were actually behind you. But you couldn't turn to face them because they'd gone underneath with so many potential snags. 482

In terms of approach, we used a very large method feeder loaded with a grapefruit sized ball of paste made up from rice husks suspended under a sliding float. The float was there not so much for bite indication as maintaining fishing depth, as once a cat had picked a bait up it would be off, tearing line from the bait-runner spool. And they were relentless. From start to finish it was every egg a bird, with an incredibly brutal mauling guaranteed. Mainly from fish in the forty to sixty pound bracket, with, as you'd expect, progressively fewer numbers as the size range increased beyond that, though hundred pounders were reportedly common enough. No worries then in terms of the price refund guarantee ever needing to be met. In the end it became more akin to punishment. I'd caught sixteen of the things and couldn't physically take any more. Yet as soon as a fish was disgorged, Ali, my personal guide, had the rig baited up and out looking for yet another. I tried to get him to stop by pleading with him that I needed a rest, but nothing. The only way to escape was go for a walk around the lake. Unfortunately for her, my wife Dawn was sat at the back of the bungalow under the fan reading a book. Like a machine, Ali just kept on casting, then turned to her and said "you, lady, wind in this fish". By the time I got back Dawn was struggling with catfish number three. Needless to say I got it in the neck for deserting her. But at least it let her see that contrary to what she had previously said on many occasions about me going away enjoying myself, it wasn't necessarily always the case. My next visit to Thailand was five years later, by which time Eddie Mounce had set up a fishery of his own. He was still doing all the other stuff as well, but had based himself a couple of hours to the west of Bangkok at a purpose built water he called Jurassic Fishing Park, where the big attraction was the availability of siamese carp. Normally at locations such as Bungsamran, it can take a couple of days to get a carp result. At Jurassic, you can expect at least a couple and more in a single session, plus you get Phill Williams, Siamese Carp Jurassic Park Lake to put a second dead-bait rod out for arapaima which can well top two hundred pounds. A very pleasant fishery way out in the countryside, with excellent dining facilities, plus on site accommodation for those that might want it. For my part, I just wanted either an arapaima or a siamese carp. I didn't unfortunately get the arapaima, but I had a few nice carp to fifty five pounds, one of which ran me peg to peg along the entire length of the lake. Very powerful fish with huge shovel like tails and the strangest of faces, with their eyes, for whatever reason, set way down the side of their head. Very odd. But very good fish to catch on halibut pellets, both on the bottom and suspended under a float with a few fed in loose every so often. I can understand why people want to catch them and rave over them when they do. There were also a few small amazonian red tailed cats just to add a bit of extra variety to what in 2015 was still a fairly new fishery only just reaching maturity, but with a very promising future when that time does eventually come along. 483