The ‘curse’ of the non-angling guest
And other tales from Thailand!
Saturday 9 February 2019
We are back……. and apologies for the radio silence over the last few weeks. Thanks to everyone who booked whilst we were away and had to wait for confirmations etc….normal service has now resumed!
We have been away on an extended holiday to Vietnam (highly recommended) and Thailand (principally a beach break with a couple of days fishing thrown in!).
This year we were joined on our trip by our good friends Karl and Liz Little. I persuaded Karl, who is a non-fisherman to join me on one of my days at Top Cats in Koi Samui. Now one of my fishing goals is to catch a Siamese Carp over 100lb. In the past I have caught them to around the 80lb mark, but never one over 100lb. Now I bet you can already sense what is coming……
As you would expect we took turns on the rods with Karl starting. He was off the mark within minutes with a Siamese Carp of around 55lb and predictably he was over the moon. Unusually, and this was the first time in over 8 visits to Thailand, I developed a stomach problem. It was my turn on the rods, when I had to answer an urgent call of nature. Of course the inevitable happened, one of the rods roared off, and I returned to find Karl playing a good fish. Long story short, Karl landed a Siamese Carp for which he was given a weight of 100lb. I was unsure whether to be very pleased for him….or bitter that was my fish! As you can see he was very pleased…..and so was I for him! My friend Chris describes this outcome as being almost inevitable and calls it the ‘curse of the non-angling guest’!
I caught a lot of Carp, between 30-60lb and the fishing was mad and exciting as always. I did manage a new species for me. The pretty fish below is strangely named as a a ‘Black Shark Minnow’.
Our holiday was well timed in that we missed some horrible cold weather and a lot of snow in the UK. As a result I do not have a lots of photos of winter Carp to share with you. The smaller lakes of Cherry Mere and Cherry Pool have produced, with both Cherry Lake and Springs switching off with the weather. I hope you like fishery manager Dave’s artistic photo of Pochard Lodge in the snow!
With the weather now warmer, wetter and windy, coupled with the days getting longer, I would expect the Carp to be getting a bit more active and starting to feed on most days. If you are itching to go fishing, I think it will be increasingly worth your while over the next few weeks. If you do, please call 01285 869887 as we have plenty of vacancies.
