Bkk Fishing, Day 1- IT MONSTER LAKE (PART 1) LOAD WARNING !

After a mere 3hours rest, me, Jpiing, Poi and my dad were on our way to our first fishing destination in Bangkok, the famous IT monster lake located in Ratchaburi, which is around 2hours drive from the city. John, our fishing guide came at 4am, yes 4am in the morning with his 7-seater SUV to fetch us. He said, we had to be there at 6, to have a higher bite rate. You know la, "Early birds gets the worms" mah.

Just a lil back ground on this amazing paypond that houses many amazing fishes.

IT(pronouce as ‘It’, not I.T) Monster Lake is a lake that belongs to Mr It Khun, a sugar refinery boss who loves fishing himself. Mr IT would buy fishes from fish farms across Thailand, fishes like araipaima, Chao Praya Catfish, Red Tail Tiger Catfish to put in his lake and he would invite some of his close angler friends over to fish them. Only lately he decides to open this monster lake to public with a minimum charge(3500bath per rod), which is RM350. Pretty pricey, but where else in the world, besides the Amazon, can you get a chance to come face-to-face with a Giant Arapaima Gigas.

After stopping half way to buy drinks, we finally reached IT Monster Lake at about 6.00 am in the morning. John helped us prepared our luring kit. ( Btw for those of you who doesnt noe what luring is, its a fishing technique where u try to catch a fish using a fake bait, usually mimicking a sick or injured fish.) John told us to try luring first, cause tricking and landing a fish on fake bait entirely on your own effort is just priceless :P

First fish on lure, Alligator Gar.

Now you know why they are called Alligator, just look at those teeth.

I manage to fight a red tail catfish on lure, and the whole fight was captured on the video below. But unfortunately, the bugger manage to unhook itself.

Double Hook-Up

Pacus, Pacus, Pacus, They were everywhere...

Brandon wit a handsome Pacu.

Mystery Fish that took our lure that was baited with carrots and cucumber.

Redtail Tiger, 3kg.

We continued on luring till noon, but the bite rate was very poor, cause the sun was just too hot. So we had a break and took some maggi goreng thai style and waited till 2pm for bait fishing. ( Visitors are only allowed to use bait @ 2pm onwards). John helped us rig up the chopped ikan kampung and we were off to catch the elusive ARAPAIMA !

Dint take long, when my brother caught our first redtail catfish. beautiful fish indeed. The kampung fish works like magic. Soon we were catching medium sized redtails after redtails ;and not to mention countless pacus.

Juping with his Asian Red tail Catfish. Notice the difference between this species and its South-American cousin.

It was til 4.30pm, when I finally hit something huge ! I knew it was a big one, and after losing the previous fish, I was determined to not let this one go..After a full 30mins tug of war, the fish finally gave in. BEST FIGHT EVER !

35kg Red tail Catfish, biggest one of the trip. Beauty.

Yours Truly with the Amazon Leviathan.

Juping too had his share of the fun..with this huge catfish.

Brandon with a 28kg catfish, caught during sunset.

Finally, at 7.30pm, when we were busy packing up, the fish we've been going after the whole day took our bait !! The fight wasn't as impressive compared to the 30kg redtail, but Yes !! Finally caught my dream fish, the 2nd largest fish in the world, the Arapaima Gigas or "JU LONG" in mandarin. Praise GOD !!

Family Picture with the Dragon fish.

Group Picture with the elusive Arapaima !

"Kiss of the Dragon" >.<

3rd Gar of the day.

Group Picture with our local guides and the last catch of the day.

We were exhausted, considering the fact we only had 3hours of sleep after touching down in Bangkok, but boy was it fun ! So far, it's been the best fishing experience in my life. Haha, just when you think the fun was over, we were going to the world famous Bungsamran lake the next day, for the Giant Mekong Catfish. So stay tune for "BKK FISHING DAY 2" update. Till then, God bless :D