THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Okay, so you can access much of it by boat, and yes, arapaima, along with some very large catfish
species do live in these waters, so where is the problem. Well, it all boils down to where exactly do you
start.
After the annual flooding of the whole region, when the water level drops, arapaima and other air
breathing species often become trapped in receding jungle lakes, which might offer some sort of
opportunity. But where exactly are these pools and how do you get to them. Far better I think to target
arapaima in the stocked commercial fisheries around the world.
If you want a guaranteed thoroughbred freshwater hundred pounder, then without hesitation, I would
say head over to Thailand and base yourself smack in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Bangkok
city centre, where each morning an air conditioned vehicle will pick you up at your hotel and whisk you
away to whatever commercial fishery it is you have chosen, according to which particular species you
have set as your target for the day.
You may not even need to leave to Bangkok at all, as one of the best and certainly most physically
taxing big fish waters, Bungsamran Lake, sits well within the city limits. There may well be better
waters in terms of hundred pound plus opportunities, but if you want to get beaten up by big fish from
the first cast to the last, then Bungsamran is the place to go.
There are huge arapaima there too weighing many hundreds of pounds. You will regularly see them
coming up to the surface gulping air. Unfortunately, due to a combination of their relative frailty and
mis-treatment by anglers in the past, fishing with live or dead-baits, which is what you need as arapaima
are predators, had been stopped when I last visited the place.
Anglers must now stick with the vegetarian approach, that being no great hardship really, as both the
mekong cats, which are so numerous that guides offer a money back guarantee for anyone not catching
at least one forty pounder, and siamese carp, which have been taken there in excess of two hundred
pounds but are far less common, can both be targeted without the chance of hooking up an arapaima as
the rules dictate.
Big mekong cats are easy to catch, and without equal in
terms of brutal hard fighting abilities. Unless you are an out
and out masochist, you won't manage to keep going there
for the whole day. I certainly couldn't. I'd rented one of the
open fronted bungalows with its fishing platform on stilts,
and while I fished, the wife sat at the back under a large
electric fan quietly reading a book.
Ali, our guide, was a harsh taskmaster. The second a fish
was disgorged, out went another float fished giant rice husk
ball on the method feeder, and in no time at all, line would
once again be pouring from the bait-runner spool.
No time for a breather, and in all honesty, I have to say that
mekong cats are the equal in slugging it out never say die
terms to anything I've ever hooked up anywhere in the
world, including tuna at sea.
Mekong Catfish
By early afternoon, and with sixteen of the things up to
between sixty and seventy pounds to my credit, I decided
enough was enough. But with Ali in attendance, the only
way to escape catching yet another was not to be there, so
I went for a walk.
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