November 2004

Thailand  What a surprize!  Having sold their Lake District tackle business Vee & Bob Carlson first step into retirement was ....... a fishing trip.  Back to somewhere they'd been on several previous occasions but this time with the expressed purpose of catching a Barramundi on the fly.

I haven't as yet heard from them, they're still in Thailand, but this report did come 'winging across the ether' from Jean-Francois Helias, one of Thailand's IGFA representatives.  Read on ......

Here is attached a photo of a tremendous catch by a female angler (and you'd better believe she can fish) from the UK.

It is a 117 lb (53 kg) Giant Mekong Catfish caught yesterday 8th Nov. by Vee Carlson here in Thailand.

Vee is the spouse of fly fishing expert Bob Carlson. This lovely couple who are currently fishing with us for the fifth time run a fishing tackle shop at the southern end of the English Lake District named Carlsons Fishing Tackle located in Cumbria, England.

Vee Carlson's 117 lb Mekong Giant Catfish ties another 117 lb Cat caught last April by Sue Papper, an English female angler (based in Hong Kong) too, for the record of the biggest Mekong Giant Catfish ever landed here in Thailand by a female angler. If you have experienced yourself any fishing for this Cat species - who pound for pound has to be rated as one of the top hardfighting freshwater fish on earth - then you can understand better the kind of angling achievement accomplished by this lady angler taming this kind of biggie. 

If yesterday was a very lucky day for Vee Carlson....it was not such a good day for two of us!  

To help with the photo session of her catch, I jumped into the water from Bung Sam Lan's wooden bridge. I thought the water level at this spot close to the bank was much deeper than it was. Also there was no mud on the bottom to make a soft landing. When my right heel hit the ground I immediately felt a pain in the neck. I had twisted a nerve! Since yesterday I can't move my head anymore without hurting. To be unable to move my head (which I feel so heavy) and to keep it straight all the time to avoid any pain is terribly annoying. I could not sleep at all last night. I got to go up-country this morning to see a good healer who has fixed me a couple of times in the past.

Later in the afternoon, my team guide Kaeng (seen on this attached pic helping Vee lifting her big Cat) accidentally planted a big size Gosen hook # 15 we use for Giant Carp fishing deeply in the extremity of one of his fingers. We had to "operate" him on the spot, forcing the hook to go through his flesh so we could cut it with pliers. The "operation" was a success though Kaeng almost fainted.....

We all enjoyed the opportunity to give him his due share of Thai style teasing about the accident....

Here's the photograph referred to.  If you're similarly tempted to give this form of freshwater fishing for exotics a try you can contact Jean-Francois through his web site at www.anglingthailand.com.

Vee's superb Giant Mekong Catfish. Click on the thumbnail to view a full sized image.  In turn click on the 'X' in the top right to close the image and return to this page.

Just for the record that's now the 5th freshwater species Club members have recorded in excess of the magical 100lb mark.  The others cover specimens from Nile Perch, Wells Catfish, Mahseer and White Sturgeon.

Thailand - Sequel  Following on from Vee’s exception fish I had this further update from Bob Carlson on their return.

Firstly, disappointingly the fly fishing for Barramundi in brackish lake near Bangkok, proved a huge flop!  They did however manage to catch six on live mullet - the best a fish of 18lb 11oz (8.5kg) on 18lb test.  Not to be deterred Bog mentioned ‘they will return’!

However, for once, Bob came close to beating Vee when, fishing a lake in northern Thailand, a few miles outside Chaing Mai.  Bob caught a Striped Catfish that weighed 35lb 10oz (16.18kg) on 18lb test.  For a while they suspected that they had an IGFA line class record, only to discover that the record had been recently ‘upped’ and his specimen was 'shy' of the record by just 8oz.  Another excuse to return to Thailand?

Watamu, Kenya  Trevor Gunning has just returned from a 'whistle-stop' trip encompassing a tournament.  A bit like the Curate's Egg!  These are his observations.

Good trip with huge packs of Sails about.  Problem was they were keeping their mouths closed!  Martin my friend whose boat I fished on is installing a livewell. Certainly when they are up and balling bait as they were last week a livebait thrown into the ball would stand a great chance of being eaten.  (Nada!  Trevor separately mentioned to me that they were totally pre-occupied - trolled deadbaits and lures didn't elicit any interest what so ever.)

Released a good Sail around 100 - 110lbs (45kg to 48kg) on 30lb test in the comp which along with a Falusi (Dorado) of 24lbs (11kg) on 12 plus a few other bits gave us second spot in the private boats section.  The Sail was the biggest fish of the comp.

Lost a huge Cobia when trolling close in on a fun day.  It struck on one of Martins rods. Now Martin is great chap who will do anything for you but he has lived in Scotland for too long and has got rather tight as a result.  Consequently that goes for money and line!  He uses drag settings of free spool or locked.  Not knowing this I put the drag up to the button after a couple of runs only to find that I need water skies to follow the fish! Resulting 'POP' could be heard in Watamu as could my comments to Martin on his tackle. Still we had a laugh about it later, but it really was a big fish.  Martin was more concerned over the loss of his favourite rapala lure!

Ghana   I guess Ghana alongside Ascension Island has to be one of the consistent BIG Marlin venues.  Over the years they've recorded some veritable monsters but average weights are also high.

One thing that recently caught my attention was reference to the commercial capture of a huge Blue, reported by Johan Zietsman - a local skipper.  Here's the report:

We've received the following report from the local chief based at the remote fishing village of Keta that is 16 miles east of Ada Foah, Ghana from where we fish.  In November 2004 the local canoe fisherman caught a monster Blue Marlin that had to be towed in by two 60 feet canoes. The elderly chief claimed that "he has never seen such a big marlin in his life before and never in Keta's history was it necessary to make us of two canoes simultaneously to tow back one marlin". Unfortunately no one took pictures and/or weighed this behemoth monster. One can only guess that this marlin was well over 1,000 pounds. Or was it perhaps the elusive double grander?

All we can do unfortunately is speculate.  As far as I'm aware only two boats operate from there Johan's 31' Bertram Moppie - Karma - and 43' world famous G&S - the Hooker - skippered by Clay Hensley.  Their respective web site can be viewed by clicking either Karma or the Hooker.  There some excellent photographs of big Marlin and world record-sized Yellowfin and Big Eye Tuna on both sites.

Sea of Cortez, Mexico  Terry Smith spent a week in Mexico, fishing out of Buena Vista lodge during late November.  It proved to be a very mixed bag - a Black Marlin estimated at 250lbs, two Striped Marlin in the 130 / 140lb range and a 100lb Sailfish.  All were taken on 50lb class tackle and released.  In addition Terry had a number of Dorado, the best weighing in at 50lbs, and school Yellowfin in the 20 to 35lb range. 

50lb Dorado from the Sea of Cortez. Click on thumbnail to view full-sized image.  Click on 'X' , top right of image, to return to this page.

For what has been a remarkably consistent fishery over so many years now though there are increasing concerns over the activity of large commercial vessels.  Any number of the super purse seiners and longliners are targeting, particularly Tuna, along that coastline now. 

It now appears that proposals to eliminate drift gillnets and ban large-scale longlining within 50 miles of Mexico's Pacific coastline are in jeopardy.  Despite public support for these proposals by their Fisheries Minister it now appears that a coalition of Mexican and US commercial fishing interests are aggressively pushing for a 'compromise' that would permit longlining within 30 miles of the coast.  The view is that this would permit up to a further 260 longlining vessels to operate within the already stressed Sea of Cortez.

An American conservation organisation - Seawatch - is attempting to co-ordinate support amongst sportsfisherman for the 50 mile protection zone.  Details of how to contact Mexican officials, and sample e-mail letters may be viewed by clicking here.