 From
all the foreign anglers I have the chance to meet because of my guiding
service, many of them have been fishing round the world. I love listening
to these guys telling me stories and anecdotes from their various trips.
Some of those guys bring me to the banks of the Amazon fishing for big
size Peacock Bass, I cast with them lures for huge Nile Perch on the lake
Nasser in Egypt, boat with them on the Frazer River targeting giant Sturgeons,
or walk through the French Guyana jungle in search for the mighty Amaira.
I travel a lot in my head. But when I need a break with my guiding
work, when I really feel it is time to have a vacation, you won’t see me
going that far on the globe, a rod in my hand. I’d love to. But I
have not enough free time for traveling in search for those adventures.
The demand from visiting anglers to fish with us here in Thailand is such
that it is impossible to have a long break with guiding. So my needs for
fishing adventures have always to be much closer to Thailand. I’ll
be somewhere near the Burmese border, or in Boleh territory, beautiful
Malaysia, hunting for one of my favorite fish species of all times, the
Giant Snakehead. |
The Catlocarpio
siamensis, the worlds biggest carp species.
STUPID I WAS
THAT NIGHT TO COMMIT MYSELF
And if I have to
fly to Kuala Lumpur, on my way to some waters I planned to angle, there
is no way I would just pass by without paying a visit to a few Malay friends
I like very much. My faithful fishing buddy Azmi Ariffin and my Rod &
Line magazine friends: the editor C.S Fong and the legendary writer Aznir
Malek, who is an authority in his country regarding Malay fish species.
I wouldn’t miss a dinner in their company, knowing too well the talking
about the passion we share in common will last for hours around the table.
Last time we had such a dinner together was in June 2001. I was on
my way for a vacation, a fishing trip in the Malay jungle. I brought
with me that night a selection of photos showing some Catlocarpio siamensis
catches. As you certainly know, the Catlocarpio is the scientific
name for the Siamese Giant Carp or “pla caho”. |
| A wonderful fish
I call the “mother of all carps” as it is the world’s biggest carp species.
Aznir and C.S Fong were pretty excited looking at those photos showing
such beauties. The Rod & Line’s editor wanted me badly to write a story
about that species. Stupid I was that night to commit myself to him! You
see, I have a great respect and admiration for the good job those guys,
like Khun Siddhichai do it here with his Thailand Angler’s Magazine, are
doing too for the sport in Malaysia through their magazine Rod & Line.
I would do anything to help them if asked. So I couldn’t answer negatively
to C.S Fong even I knew it would be very difficult for me later to find
free time writing anything at all. I told him politely I would be glad
then to write a story telling it all about the giant carp and how to fish
for it. Big mistake!
Back to Thailand,
later, I would have to cope with a terrible dilemma. As a man of
a word and principles, I had to keep my word and do it. But as an always
“more than busy” guy who spends his days and often his nights too taking
care of his guiding service enterprises, I just couldn’t find any spare
time to be done with it. I did start that story, writing a few more lines
every time I could. Nine months later, my text is still not finished. Shame
on me! But there is no way I can do any better. Some European magazines
too have often asked me to write about fishing topics they are interested
in. They offer me a very nice money reward for my work. I turned down all
the offers. I didn’t want to commit myself anymore, taking the risk to
lose my face again. So I told the editors “how sorry I was and how much
I appreciated their interest,” but frankly I had not time at all anymore
for writing.
I could say you are
very lucky to read me today - of course if you enjoy what I have to say!
Cause today I am ill, stuck at home with a bad flue, and have nothing else
to do than write. I could go on with the writing of my long story about
the giant carp and its angling methods but as a perfectionist kind of guy,
I don’t want to rush with it. Nothing has ever been written in English
on the subject so I want it perfect. Hopefully you will read that article
someday. Luck and bad luck, carp fishing and IGFA records, those
are instead what I feel talking to you about today, doing it in one shot. |
 I
HAVE BEEN “A SINNER” FOR 42 YEARS AND I LOVE IT
My first encounter
with the Siamese giant carp happened 16 years ago when I settled in Thailand.
That first contact unfortunately was not in action by the water, but less
exciting… on paper of a magazine. My first discovery of that magnificent
fish was through a few rare photos published in issues of a local specialized
mag I enjoyed looking at my best friend’s home. I was living at that time
with Pramote and his family in a small paradise of nature with plenty of
canals, swamps, ponds and big lakes, called Bang Plee and located at 50
km from the capital. Pramote and myself shared 3 passions:
A taste for beautiful women, Thai boxing and fishing. He was one of the
pioneer anglers you could find in Thailand at that period. Being
educated abroad he had a good command of English so I had the chance to
learn a lot from him about the main Thai freshwater fish species and the
methods local anglers would use to catch them. But what I learned
about the Siamese Giant Carp was not much, in fact almost nothing. Except
that according to him it was “not at all an easy fish to catch”. Pramote
had never given it a try himself. So I had to wait another 15 years to
discover that fish, this time in action, and start to get seriously hooked
on it. The only Thai carp I went after with him was not the Siamese Giant
one but a much smaller species, the common carp.
During the year I
was living at his home, we fished together at least twice a week for many
kinds of fish, more especially the common carp. I wish now he had
known more about the Siamese carp. But I guess he - like not too many guys
at that time- didn’t know really how to fish successfully for that difficult
species. Fishing with a rod was something quite new to the Thai people
at that period. There were only a few tackle shops in Bangkok. And
the angling sport was only practiced by a small bunch of crazy guys who
didn’t mind at all to be called sinners by the rest of the population.
Pramote loved to fish in particular a lake called “Pailin”. That lake had
mainly in its waters Catfish species and plenty of common carps. There
were a few big Catlocarpio too. Too bad, we didn’t know how to fish for
them. I remember seeing only one guy catching a big carp at that time.
We were instead targeting Thai common carps. They don’t grow that big like
they do in Europe but it was OK by me. We enjoyed ourselves very much catching
every fishing trip loads of those fish and that was good enough to me.
Pramote had a friend who knew a “secret miraculous bait” recipe for those
common carps. There is no secret anymore to me about that formula now so
I am glad to give you the name of the ingredients to be mixed. Who knows?
Maybe it could work nicely for you too in some other waters. It was so
simple: bread mixed with grinned fresh peanuts and sesame seeds. That bait
was a real killer. We used to land around 50 carps a day weighting 1 to
2 kg. Many local anglers were looking at us with envy. They just couldn’t
understand why a “farang ‘ (foreigner) like me could catch that much fish
on their territory when they could only catch a few. The fun of it was
Pramote always warning me like a father to a son to hide the bait in a
plastic bag. I had the order to never open it when someone was getting
close to me. Local anglers fishing next to us often tried to “spy” (as
the Thai called it here) on us to know what was our secret weapon. I still
laugh about it now… |
 <--In
Thailand, common carps don’t grow big like they do in Europe
Then Pramote got
married again. Either for divorces or marriages he could have held a record,
if not an IGFA one, as it was the 5th time for my amazing Casanova friend.
Thailand being a Buddhist country, fishing with a rod was (and still is
nowadays) seen by the Thai as a sin rather than a sport. It is still
said fishing brings bad luck to those who make suffering living creatures
like fish for their own pleasure. My friend promised his non-angling
new wife (to whom he was deeply in love with) he will never fish anymore.
He was crazy enough to keep his word. I lost a good first fishing
companion, made new local angler friends and went on with my discovery
of the Thai fish species. I angled a lot of them since. But there
is no other species like the Siamese Giant Carp – except for the Giant
Snakehead - that had such an impact on me. I think I caught for a
long time to go what I call the Caho fever!
HUMBLY SPEAKING
BUT STILL PROUD OF IT
Since we started
to angle on a regular basis for the Siamese giant carp, we have experienced
through our fishing sessions at Bung Sam Lan Lake, from May to December
2001, not less than 70 bites from Caho specimens. We are not fishing this
lake everyday and only wet lines for that species when we got to guide
visiting anglers who book our guiding service for that destination. What
a great festival of bites it has been all along those seven months!
We landed 28 of these giant carps weighting 18 kg (~40 lbs.) for the smallest
one, to 80 kg (~176 lbs.) for the biggest one. We lost all the others,
some of them being real giants, carps either getting unhooked on their
first run, or most of the time too powerful to be stopped, snagging our
lines through too close obstacles. For a first year targeting that fish,
it is without a doubt an exceptional score for our Fishing Adventures Thailand
pro guide team that I believe no other local angler in Thailand has ever
accomplished so far, more especially in such a short period of time. All
those carp catches have already made a lot of noise in Europe in the carp
angling world. A year ago, if you were typing the words Siamese Giant Carp
or Catlocarpio siamensis to search for information about that fish on the
internet, there was almost nothing to be found. Check it out today, it
has changed! There are now plenty of websites from various countries, even
from the United States, talking and showing photos about our carp catches.
A part of the net, several European fishing magazines have featured stories
about it too. |
A 39.00 Kg (~86
lbs) giant carp caught by Dr. John Chester, UK
| I can say I feel
proud of those 28 Catlocarpio landed in a few months and even more of each
one of my team of guides. I am thinking of Kik who is to me, without a
doubt, one of the most skillful and gifted anglers of this country, as
well as Nok, Noi, Kaeng and Nat who have been part too of our success all
along the way. Now please don’t misunderstand what I just meant by “proud”,
my dear friends. Ask any foreign angler who knows me enough well
would confirm you I am not a kind of angler to brag or to show off. On
the contrary, I am a very humble guy when it comes to speak about what
some others would maybe call “fishing exploits”. Cause I don’t see
any “exploit” in catching fish when you have the chance like me to angle
more often than anyone else. Being a professional fishing guide makes
it of course so much easier to get more opportunities than any other fellow
angler to catch fish all year long of all sizes and weights. But we are
not speaking here of any other fish. We are speaking about the Catlocarpio
siamensis! Some of you readers might not know anything about that fish.
But if asked, any Thai angler would tell you how shy and cautious is that
particular carp species, how difficult it is to make that fish bite, and
how frustrating sometimes can be its fishing. I guess if you were
at my place, you wouldn’t feel hesitating to use, still humbly speaking,
the word “proud” too as I just did. |
 2
FIRST DECENT SIZE CATCHES THAT DIDN’T MAKE IT
I often regretted
in the past that my English buddy Nigel Botherway didn't submit the lovely
Siamese Giant carp he caught with us in January 2001. Nigel is a lovable
friend working in the UK as a journalist for Sky TV. Being the very first
of our guests to catch a Catlocarpio at Bung Sam Lan, I would have loved
him to be as well the first angler to submit a Caho catch to the IGFA and
even more because his catch was in a way not an easy one. We witnessed
that day a wonderful display of angling skills. The line Nigel was using
was only 15 lbs and far to be brand new. He said he had it on his reel
for ages and admitted later he feared all along the fight a broken line.
It didn’t happen. Nigel played cleverly a very tricky carp that tried several
times to snag his line under the pontoon he was standing on. It took him
almost 40 minutes before landing a superb specimen of 35 kg. (77 lbs.,
above)
When I asked him
if he was OK to submit his catch as a potential first All Tackle world
record, he accepted. We proceeded then to the weighting and measurements
according to the IGFA rules, filled the submissions documents together,
and then, in the evening, Nigel changed his mind. I understood him when
he explained me the reason why. He thought exactly the same way I will
think myself later. He felt his 35 kg carp catch, as a first representative
of the world biggest carp fish species, was not really big enough to enter
the International Game Fish Association records book.
A few months later,
it was my turn to land another decent size giant carp. Previous to that
new catch, I already landed a few nice specimens weighting from 18 kg to
34 kg but nothing bigger yet than Nigel’s 35 kg carp. I knew sooner or
later a much bigger Caho would have to take my bait. It was only a question
of going on with the fishing for those carps, then wait and see… |
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