Bungsamran 20th May

The morning started very slowly. I caught the first fish after about 3 hours, a tilapia of less than 1kg. Then came a Mekong of around 22kg and a striped catfish of around 7kg. Mid afternoon the fishing got a bit faster with three more Mekongs in the 20kg to 25kg range. One was hooked in the tail, it looks like this fish used its tail a lot to break up bait balls as it had been hooked three times previously in the tail. Just before 9pm I hooked the last fish of the day, a nice fat Mekong of around 25kg. All the Mekongs put up a great fight really testing my fishing tackle.

Mekong giant catfish
Mekong giant catfish – Bungsamran

A good day at Bungsamran

Bungsamran ticket

Not many fish caught but a good day at Bungsamran. On my first cast I hooked a Siamese Giant Carp, after a fairly brief fight, it was hauled out onto the pier, it tipped the scales at 26.6kg. A few casts later I landed a Mekong giant catfish of around 40kg. I lost the next two fish by pulling the hook from one and snapping off on the other. I subsequently landed three more Mekongs, the first two estimated at 25kg and 23kg, the last on the scales at 29.1kg.

Siamese Giant Carp
26kg Siamese Giant Carp

An afternoon at Giant Fishing Park

Giant Fishing Park Pattaya
Giant Fishing Park Pattaya

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be treated to an afternoon fishing at Giant Fishing Park, thanks Bill 🙂 . Giant is a fairly large pond stocked with predator and scavenger species. The set up is a simple ledger rig using chunks of dead fish as bait.

Use of the park’s tackle, transport and a meal is included in the price but you may want to bring your own gear as some of their reels are pretty rough. Most of the fish are fairly small at Giant and don’t pull anything like a Mekong so you don’t need particularly heavy gear. I used some fairly light tackle with 20lb line although this may not be strong enough if you hook a stingray. Thread a weight onto your main line followed by a bead, then tie on a swivel. You then use a braid hook link of 6″-9″, I used a size 14 hook.

I started the day with an alligator gar of around 3kg followed by spotted sorubim (aka leopard catfish) of around 3kg, neither of them put up much of a fight.

Alligator Gar
Alligator Gar
Leopard Catfish
Leopard Catfish

I ended the day with another alligator gar, this one around 2kg and an Amazon red tail catfish of around 4kg.

Amazon Red Tail Catfish
Amazon Red Tail Catfish

More information about Giant Fishing Park.

Bungsamran: the return

As it had been a few months since our previous visit and a keen fisherman friend was in town we decided a return to Bungsamran was in order.

Bangkok, Thailand. Wednesday 17th December 2014.

We arrived at Bungsamran about 10.15am, this time we didn’t employ the services of a guide but all the guides appeared to be using ready prepared and highly scented buckets of rice husks, ฿520 for a medium sized bucket little more than half full.

I started the day by pulling the hook out of the first two fish I had hooked, this happened quite a few times throughout the day. Eventually I landed the first Mekong, too small to bother with the scales but it looked around 20kg. Then another in the low twenties followed by a striped catfish of about 8kg.

I then hooked into a monster but he wrapped himself around one of the pier supports, I couldn’t free him and ended up snapping the line. I landed four more Mekongs, the largest weighed in at 34.1kg.

Mekong giant catfish
Mekong giant catfish

I then hooked another decent sized fish. After a while I got him in close, he decided to head under the pier. Remembering what happened last time and losing what was probably the largest fish I had ever hooked I applied considerable force to the rod to pull him out. He swam harder, I applied more force, the rod bent to about 135° shortly before snapping into two. As it was about 8:15 in the evening I decided to call it a day.

PE6 Broken fishing rod
Broken PE6 fishing rod
PE6 Broken fishing rod
That’s f***** it!
Bungsamran bait
Bungsamran bait for big fish