Mekong Catfish in Thailand

A while back in Thailand, I contacted my good friend Captain Eddie Mounce of Fish Thailand http://fishthailand.co.uk/. My interested was in doing a jungle fishing safari on Kanchanaburi Lake at Khao Laem Dam in western thailand. I had heard about the massive snake head species in the lake.

Eddie informed me that the snake heads http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channidae were not biting at the time so I opted to do some fishing for Mekong Catfish and other catfish species at Bungsamran Lake near Bangkok.

It turned out to be a good day, Eddie provided me with an excellent fishing guide named Ali and under his guidance I managed to Hook and land 38 catfish nearly all over 20 kilos, over an 8 hour period. The Mekong Catfish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangasius_gigas is the largest fresh water catfish in the world. It is protected under Thai law, so it is catch and release only.

Also over the same time period I went to Ko (island) Samet resort http://www.koh-samet.org/koh-samet-resort.htm and did a bit of Tuna fishing. I hired a boat for the entire day for just over 30 bucks American. I didn't catch any tuna http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuna but toured the fish farm, drank some Chang beer http://www.changbeer.com/and and got way too much sun.

I ended up spending the night at one of the local island resorts because I missed the last ferry back to the mainland. While at the fish farm I had some fun feeding the captive tuna, I would throw a small bait fish over their pens and watch them shoot through the water, I believe they are the fastest fish in the ocean.

The next morning I caught the ferry to the mainland, then took the bus back to Bangkok. Once there I took a long nap at my apartment, then went out for some street food. I didn't take more than a few days in BKK before boredom overtook me and I headed out in quest of my next adventure.

But, that is another story!

Tomahawk