January 18, 2009
By John Wilson
VISITING my brother Dave who has lived for the past five years in Thailand was something my wife Jo and I were very much looking forward to over the Christmas break.
And although it was a family get together, we had also planned a couple of days fishing together with long time pal Jinx Davey, also from Norfolk.
After all. Enduring seven consecutive days of retail therapy was simply not on. So Dave, Jinx and I slipped away to Palm Tree Lagoon, a four acre lake north of our hotel in Hua Hin, following a Boxing Day excursion to that popular tourist spot near Bangkok, non other than The Bridge over the River Kwai.
It seemed strange really, surreal almost, that for more years than I care to remember, watching the motion picture of the same name, always occurred around Christmas time, and yet this year here we were at the railway bridge itself, reflecting upon how many lives its original, wooden construction cost.
Today’s bridge being of steel and concrete construction. A poignant moment indeed.
I had in fact filmed one of my ‘Dream Fishing’ programmes for Discovery TV at Palm Tree Lagoon only a couple of years back and was looking forward to a return trip due to the huge fish the lake holds in the form of 100lbs plus giant Chao Phray catfish, Mekong Catfish and Arapaima.
Viewers may recall that I lost a huge Chao Phray during the filming whilst Dave landed an Arapaima of 150lbs plus for our two camera’s, on would you believe, a chunk of chicken, float fished close in ‘lift-style’.
It really is the kind of lake where anything can and usually does turn up to either float fished or free-lined meat or fish baits. So a wire trace is imperative.
But apart from one large arapaima that Dave connected with, but which slipped the hook after only a few minutes, having inhaled a small live bait, most of the lake’s larger inhabitants were still enjoying their Christmas break.
We did however really enjoy the day slamming into both pacu and catfish in the 20-30lbs range, on free-lined chicken and small dead baits.
Jinx caught a rather strange catfish called a ‘black spot’ which save for a dark blotch behind its gills was not unlike a Mekong catfish.
It possessed those same ‘downwards-slanting eyes’ of both Swai and Mekong catfish, and a distinct ‘snub nose’, with a bright silver body and tapering points to its fins, just like Chao Phray catfish. And that’s the beauty of Thailand’s commercial fisheries.
