Thought I'd say G'day

[Bob9863]

Thought I'd say G'day and mention a bit about myself and my fishing. 

My favourite forms of fishing are land bases shark fishing when I can get to the coast, local finesse fishing for Redfin and yellow belly, trout to when I can get out to the rivers and I love fishing in the various fishing parks in Thailand. 

Definitely my favourite fish is arapima, having a 150lb or bigger fish on the line that jumps like a trout is just amazing, although the hard fighting red tail catfish is a real dirty fighting pit bull too. 

Tarpon are probably a close 2nd, they are a hoot to catch but can be a bugger to hook up on. 

The gear I use over there is, 

Main bait fishing rig is a, Shimano tekota 300 on a 15kg ugly stick, I love the clicker for bait fishing and it doubles as a respectable casting rod too with medium/big lures. 

That lives over there. 

My casting outfit is a Nitro gangster megabeast 10kg travel rod with a Diawa Ryoga reel, I run both with 50lb jigman Xbraid. 

I also use a Nitro Viper 8kg rod with a Shimano Vanford 5000 spin reel and 40lb Shimano kairiki braid. 

That's more of general purpose outfit good for everything. 

Locally I love ultra light finesse fishing, I started doing it because the slow deliberate technique used to feel bites on the smaller fish like redfin and yellow belly is the same as with the larger gear I use in Thailand, the fish bite the same. 

I find both aren't really aggressive feeders a but like cod, you have to put the lure in the right spot, slow fish it as neither then to chase for the most part. 

So here I use a nitro powerbream 3kg finesse rod with a shimano Vanford 2500 reel with 6lb shimano kairiki braid. 

Im buying another more plastic specialised rig this week, a Nitro Vapor 2kg with a Shimano Vanford 1000 reel and 4lb Shimano kairiki braid. 

That should be the perfect rod for flicking ultralight plastics for soft presentation for redfin in the shallows and for stream fishing for trout. 

Lastly for cod I use a Nitro undertaker 6kg with a Diawa Steez ct reel and 30lb Shimano Kairiki line. 

My land based shark rig is a Diawa big game 24kg 3 piece travel rod and a Shimano Tyrnos 30 reel with 100lb spectra braid. 

Because I do so much travel fishing and have for years I've always been on the lookout for good travel rods, I've had some OK ones and some crap ones but once I found the nitro range of travel rods I never looked back, I've also got a 4kg Nitro traveler spin rod I put the 2500 Vanford on when travelling. 

Great set up for talipa and snakehead. 

But then when I was looking for some two piece rods for around here I naturally went for the nitro rods again I just live them, the sane with the Vanford reel, it's just so lightweight and smooth and very reasonably priced. 

I always loves my Abu Garcia Ambassadeur reels, but only have one left now as a backup reel and for bait fishing with the Gangsta rod. 

I generally find when I buy gear I really like I stick with it and other stuff gets re-homed. 

I've got a few other rigs but they are getting moved on, I moved on a lot of gear recently to make space as it just wasn't getting used any more. 

 

 

[Bob9863]

Should add a few pic's

[Junky]

G'day Bob. 

Great fish in the pics. Well done. 

 

 

Welcome to the forum. 

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Hi Bob

Welcome to the forum. Those are some awesome captures! I love my Abu Ambasseudor reel too. 

Cheers Hamish

[Bob9863]

I'm down to a piraiba and a tiger fish on my list of must catch fish, I've found a park that has both so hopefully I can tick both them off in the bear future. 

Catching in a park might seem like cheating a, but but it's just not possible to go fishing fir many of these species in the wild any more and it still comes, down to you being able to entice a reluctant fish to bite. 

It's a lot harder then you might think, the fish are well feed and are very hook shy so you have to be spot on in your presentation. 

They also put a lot of nuisance fish in that you gave to work your way around to get the big ones. 

I've landed 15 barra in under 2 hours trying to entice a reluctant bite from one of the big ones. 

Who would think catching that many barra would be a PITA.

[Old Scaley]

Hi Bob, welcome to the site. I have seen videos of fishing in those Thai fishing parks for arapima. They are an impressive looking fish and what a great sustainable way of targeting them.  Looking forward to seeing some reports.

[kmcrosby78]

Welcome to the forum mate, great to see some different fish that we don't get here. That one with the red markings/stripes is cool .

[ellicat]

G'day Bob. Welcome to the AFO forum.

Sounds like you love your fishing, which is a good thing for a forum such as this. haha

Look forward to your contributions.

 

[Bob9863]

8 minutes ago, kmcrosby78 said:

Welcome to the forum mate, great to see some different fish that we don't get here. That one with the red markings/stripes is cool .

That one's an Arapima, not the biggest I've caught but the red breeding pattern on her was just incredible. 

I will have to put some videos up of catching a few different things at different parks. 

I tend to view fishing here these days as practice for catching fish like that, it's great to be able to catch a half dozen different species from around the world in the same day. 

The big tourist parks have some massive fish and prices to match but the smaller local parks are cheap, anywhere from $15 to $120 a day. 

You can't beat that for value. 

Also the big parks don't like you catching too many fish, they like you to get a couple but considering a big arapima is worth a years pay each they don't like them getting caught to often. 

The smaller local parks are different, they don't have as big a fish but they still have monsters, and they like tourists to catch a good haul so you come back and tell your friends. 

I like to go to 2-3 a week when I'm there, different parks each time, one of the more expensive ones and one or two of the cheaper smaller local ones in town. 

I usually stay for around a month so I get to visit quite a few. 

Each one has its own techniques that only really work there so it can take a bit of learning to figure out how to catch good at each one. 

I might do a separate thread on it with some photos and video. 

[Jono4500]

They're some awesome pics there Bob. If some1 with no experience in Thailand or the language was keen to give some of these parks a go would U recommend a guide or an agency , or just figure out the logistics themselves? 

[Bob9863]

Guides are 50/50, I never had one and made mistakes my 1st few trips. 

But some of the parks are great to deal with, they might not speak enough English but are pretty handy with Google translate. 

Your hotel can usually make some arrangements for you, and it's easy to hire a taxi driver for the day. 

I did that my 1st outing to bungsamran, cost me 2000baht or about $90 to hire him for the day. 

Took me a while to figure out how to mix the bait up and what works, which made some locals laugh, but it's a bit of an art. 

Bait fishing is a bread based putty or pellets most places, you use a little burly cage with a hook hanging off it to make giant bait balls. 

But if you go to the smaller lakes they really look after you, most of the ponds won't it's pretty much a case of being treated like a local. 

The small lakes will use a lot of live bait, but will mix up vegetarian baits for some of the non predator species. 

There's plenty of package tours but I don't like them, I've fished near a few and they are all pretty much focused on getting everyone a minimum amount of fish to keep them happy and you pay a lot more for the privilege. 

It might be worth doing one or two and pay close attention to how they set the gear, the bait and mix it and then you should be fine on your own.