We at Bangkokhooker’s Fishing in Thailand have created a new ranking system to contributors of the new forum as well as a competition to win a free Bangkokhooker shirt of your choice with free domestic shipping (international shipping will have to be paid separately).

Bangkokhooker Represent!

Competition rules:

The first five users to reach the level of Veteran Hooker (a total of 50 post contributions) will receive a free Bangkokhooker T-shirt of their choosing! This includes the blue T-shirt, grey T-shirt, the original polo (if sizes are available) and two new top-secret designs to be unveiled in February!

Hooker rankings

Remember folks, a hooker by its original definition is one who hooks, thus, a fisherman. However if you are a hooker by the second definition for fishing we’re cool with it too!

This is the list of the obtainable Hooker ranks:

Virgin Hooker = 0-4 Posts

Casual Hooker = 5-49 Posts

Veteran Hooker = 50-99 Posts

Champion Hooker = 100-499 Posts

Hooker Hero = 500-999 Posts

Hooker of the Divine Order = 1000-2999 Posts

Hooker Legend = 3000-4999 Posts

Hooker Deity = 5000+ Posts – WE’RE NOT WORTHY!!

we at Bangkokhooker have grown to a point where we’ve become a little community of fishermen with a love for fishing in Thailand and frankly, it’s been a pleasure to have made friends with all of you along the way. To celebrate our growth we’ve created a new forum. It is still in its beta stages but it it already has some pretty good features that I’d like to share with you.

Highlights

Share fishing stories and photos

Let the world know about what you’ve caught here. Upload photos, tell everyone about your adventures.

Use the forum to organise a fishing trip to save money

Fishing in Thailand can get expensive if you don’t know what you’re doing or if you have to pay for things like petrol and accommodation all by yourself. This is especially true when it comes to deep sea fishing trips that can be anywhere from B15000 and up per trip. Just post about a possible future fishing to anywhere and see who’s available to join.

Get in touch with the local competitions and fishing news

Fishing competitions are quite common in Thailand but the problem is that most of them are posted in the wrong language. Here at Bangkokhoker Fishing we’ll try our best to update you with information regarding competitions and fishing park updates.

Share your favourite fishing parks to the community

There are so many fishing parks in Thailand that it is pretty impossible to go check them all out. If you have a favourite place you’d like to share or promote, feel free to drop some information on how to get there and get in contact with the fishing park owners.

How to upload photos onto the forum

Photos of up to 200KB can be uploaded onto the forum via the uploader. Follow these illustrated steps to make life easier!

Step 1 - Click the image upload icon.

Step 2 - You may add photo via url or via uploading. Click on the icon to upload photo from your hard drive to the forum.

Step 3 - Click "Browse" to locate your file from your computer.

Step 4 - Once the file has been selected, click on the "Upload" button. Wait for the file to be uploaded. (An indicator in the form of a green bar will show that the upload has completed.) Once that is done, click on "Browse" on the top right (not the bottom one, I know confusing).

Step 5 - In the "browse" tabe, the photo has been uploaded now click on the photo that you have just uploaded.

Step 6 - Almost done! After clicking on the picture you'll be back here. Click "Insert".

Step 7 - Done!

Okay, I hope that clears up some things. If there are any problems at all please let us know so that we can fix it as possible.

Best regards,

Oz Bangkokhooker.

It's not trespassing if the place is abandoned!

Currently, I am in my family home in Kuala Lumpur on my annual trip to visit the family. Luckily this year I’m here during the Chinese New Year period so I’ve been eating much more food that necessary. We at Bangkokhooker’s Fishing in Thailand have also been busy creating the forum so that fishermen in Thailand as well as those visiting Thailand can share their expertise, stories and even try to plan affordable fishing trips together. Please go check it out at http://bangkokhooker-fishing.com/forum, we’d really appreciate your input and your feedbacks.

This time round I had the pleasure of meeting one of my long-time readers, Kevin. Together we went to check out a few of the many abandoned tin mines of Malaysia, which, over time have filled up with both rainwater and snakeheads. This happened just last Saturday, January 21, 2012. Our target was both the striped snakehead as well as the giant snakehead.

The mines were beautiful. Trees, grass and water vegetation have grown over leaving the place looking scenic. It’s too bad that the only snakeheads that were biting were too small to hit the hook of our frog lures properly. Either way, that didn’t stop us from having a good time and hopefully we’d be back there once more sometime before I return to Bangkok on this coming January 30, 2012.

Thanks Kevin! Let’s get back there with a vengeance!

Happy Chinese New Year! I wish you all a safe, happy and prosperous year!

Bring on a new day!

Sunrises are always worth waking up early for.

One of the many emptied mines through the fence.

Kevin leading us to the mines.

Knee deep in the brush.

Casting into the sun.

Today some of these tin mines have become sand mines. Sandpits + rainwater = crystal clear pools.

The day ended with no fish. We headed back to the city to plan our next trip. Thanks for reading!

Not too long ago I had my first taste of getting caught trespassing. It was on my second ever fishing trip with Alex. We were driving from one natural fishing spot to Pilot 111 before we encountered a very beautiful pond littered with lily pads and pretty pink flowers floating on the surface. There were no fences save for some roofing material that sort of acted like a 4-inch fence coming out of the ground but it was barely visible in the tall grass. Needless to say, we set up our gear and started casting our lures. It didn’t take long before a very angry landowner showed up in his pickup truck. He was seriously on the verge of tears, it seemed like a problem he faced on quite a regular basis. I felt bad. This fish farm looked so pretty and natural that it was hard to tell if it was private property or a wild pond (save for that little fence thing of course, but that could have been leftover from the last owner, I don’t know).

Alex tried to talk our way out of it but his thick German accent made the most innocent of words sound like a threat being issued by an evil Hollywood character from a 90s action movie. I seriously thought that I’d be going to the slammer in my fishing clothes. Wouldn’t that be a funny sight to see?

I placed my hand on Alex’s shoulder and put on my gentle Thai voice: a soft tone that borderlined the ladyboy territory with away all masculine hostility stripped away. “Oh, I’m so sorry sir, we were mistaken. Please accept our apology. It’s just that we are not from the area and were unfamiliar with all these ponds. We would never in our right minds fish in someone else’s fish farm”. It worked, he calmed down and we apologized once more before heading off to Pilot 111.

It’s not trespassing if you have the right friends

My cousin, Wise, goes to a university in Bangkok’s Rangsit area (I’m going to keep this university unnamed to protect some identities). Like any poor college kid, he doesn’t have a full-time job to sustain an expensive hobby like fishing so I usually would take him out with me on my trips and buy him some gear every now and then including the rod and reel set I just gave him today. Besides, it was his grandfather and his father that used to take me out so it’s my turn to play big brother.

A few days ago I got a phone call from him. He sounded very excited, “bro! I have made a friend with the university’s groundskeeper and he said there are plenty of plaan chons and plaa chados swimming in the university canals and with his permission we can fish there!” Okay, that got me pretty damn excited. But how did he make friends with the groundskeeper of all people? I asked and he told me this awesome story: “I was driving around the university and saw a man filleting a very large Mekong giant catfish. It looked like it could be over 40kg. I got out of my car and asked him where he got it from and he said he caught it and it must have been washed in from the flood. We started talking about fishing and before you know it he invited me to go fish for snakeheads with him in the university. Oh and I also lent him my katana to cut the fish”.

Yeah about that katana. My cousin is by far the least violent person in the world but growing up in Asia means you get to watch a lot of tv shows and anime about ninjas and samurais, because they are just so bloody cool. He’s actually thinking about starting an online business selling the Japanese blades.

"That's not a knife, THIS is a knife!"

Fishing in the university: It’s not trespassing if you’re invited

Anyway back to fishing. The cousin invited me to go with him and of course, I totally said yes.

An the university, traces of the flood still lingered everywhere. Some trees were dead from being underwater too long while brown stains marked buildings on how high the water was. It was slightly eery imagining what it would have been like. I got lucky, I live in downtown Bangkok, far from the disaster zone. The only exposure to the flood we had was from the news.

These cars would have been fully submerged.

When I arrived with my cousin to the university canals our friend the groundskeeper was already there with another friend who had just landed a 1.5kg giant snakehead. The groundskeeper was a really friendly guy. He told us where to fish and where to avoid the security cameras, at least the ones that were still working after the flood. He watched us fish for awhile before going off to work. It was awesome.

There were two canals to fish from. The two canals ran parallel one another with a small two-lane road running through the middle. Passerbys would slow down when they saw us. There was the constant impending fear of getting caught trespassing that creeped up my neck from the last encounter with Alex. Definitely no need to relive that episode of my life any time soon.

The wider canal had many fallen tree branches that hid some small giant snakeheads. With the white bodied green footed Ribbit Frog coupled with the Daeng Duad frog I started casting along the canal banks. Several hit the lure before one sizable one took the lure deep into its mouth before getting landed by yours truly. Wise, armed with the new Phoenix baitcaster set I just got him, was successful with a small striped snakehead as well as two small giant snakeheads that bit down hard on the red and white Tee Lampang frog that I leant him.

When noon rolled over, it got quite hot and the fish stopped biting as aggressively. I had so much fun running and gunning the canals that I pretty much forgot about the possibility of getting arrested. My cousin seemed happy with his new gear. It’s a pity that the fishing here wouldn’t stay this good as our groundskeeper friend didn’t like the idea of catch and release and wanted us to either keep our catch or give him all the fish for a dinner party he’s throwing for his friends.

Either way, it’s good to have someone welcome you to fish instead of calling the cops for a change.

"Hey this looks nice!"

"Let's try a cast"

"Let's do it with a mask!"

"Here goes."

"The mask works!"

A close up of the giant snakehead and the set up that caught it.

Cousin Wise has a go.

Success! A nice-sized striped snakehead

A close-up of the hook-set

And cousin Wise does it again with a small giant snakehead!

Baitercaster VS Spinning

When it comes to fishing, it’s all about selecting the right toys to play with and when it comes to toys the most sophisticated piece of equipment a fisherman would own is the fishing reel. With so many parts and so many types to choose from reel selection can be a difficult thing. It is the age-old question: what’s better? The baitcasting reel or the spinning reel? In Thailand using a baitcaster over a spinning reel is pretty much a statement to say that you are a more serious fisherman than others as the spinning reel here is generally the first reel most people use or own here. In Thailand, there is also the general misconception that the spinning reel was invented before the baitcasting. Boy were they wrong.

Baitcaster

Facts

• The original baitcaster reel was believed to have originated in the 17th Century.
• Originally, the drag of a baitcaster reel came with no drag. The only resistance came from the fisherman’s thumb.
• They are known sometimes as a conventional reel in the US and a multiplier reel in the UK.
• The reel is fixed above the rod and not below.

Spinning reel

• Spinning reels came into popular use as early as the 1870s. They were created so that people could cast out smaller lures and baits.
• They only became widely popular after the Second World War.

• The spinning reel’s design allows for line to leave the reel without having to overcome inertia thus eliminating backlash.
• It can cast much lighter gear allowing for some superior finesses fishing.
• With the reel at the bottom, holding a spinning rod feels a lot more natural than holding a baitcaster rod as it allows for a more solid grip and a more comfortable weight distribution.

Cons:

• Cranking the line while the fish is pulling the line out will easily result in twisted line a problem when fighting bigger fish.
• Requires both hands when pressing down on the spool for power lifting.
• Holding the reel incorrectly can hurt when the bail arm spins into your knuckles, something that would never happen with a baitcaster.

Interesting Thai reel trends

• The preferred reel for freshwater lure fishing in Thailand is the low-profile baitcasting reel.
• Fishing with a baitcaster in Thailand shows that you are more serious about fishing simply because the first reel most people own in Thailand is the spinning reel. There’s a novelty in using something that no one else uses.
• Like hand-bags there is also a hierarchy of brand names when it comes to reels. It’s almost a status symbol like driving an expensive car around.
• Shimano dominates the market as being the number one luxury brand for fishing reels. It is also the most easy to resell.
• The spinning reel that everyone seems to want for all sorts of fishing is the Shimano Stella family. Prices range from about B17000-30000.
• The baitcaster reel that everyone seems to want for lure fishing is the low-profile Shimano Anteres or anything from that family. The magnetic control and the built-in microchip allows for this baitcaster to cast small lures like a spinning reel. Prices in Thailand for the Anteres start from B14000.
• On top of the Shimano Anteres, the Shimano Calcutta is also in great demand and will always very easily fetch a high price on the online auctions.

What are your thoughts on your choice of fishing reel? Is one superior to the other? What sort of  unique trends do you have in your country?

Looks like we're eating sashimi tonight!

The Shimada family is one family I truly admire. A Japanese family that meets every year around New Year time to have a fishing reunion. They would wake up early in the morning, take a van together to a pier in Si Racha and fish off a boat for about six hours before coming back to Bangkok, going to their usual restaurant, Don Don Japanese restaurant in Sukhumvit soi 39.

Almost four years ago I had the lucky chance of meeting this family through another family friend. They asked if I would like to join them for their annual fishing trip. Now in 2012, I’ve been fishing with them four times and every time it’s been a blast.

Our boat takes us just off the coast of Si Racha and anchor us around various spots in the Gulf of Thailand where artificial reefs have been created. There we each baitfish with a rod using deap guppies as bait for small fish all the time. The fish usually ranged from about 100g to a 1kg so picking the lightest possible set up for this fishing made it a whole lot more fun.

There are three daughters in the family with Mei, the youngest, being the most talented in fishing. Her form, technique and stamina at the sea has allowed her to outfish everyone, even someone who does it fulltime like me. My nickname for her has always been “Fishing God Mei”.

This year was no different, Fishing God Mei did what she did every year: she continued to pull out fish at an accelerated rate and managed to do it continuously without tiring until the very end. It was completely stupid to try and challenge her to a numbers game. But at the end of the day were all winners. The challenge made us fish harder and we were also fortunate enough to be blessed with lots of fish this year, which made the dinner that night all the more enjoyable.

That night we celebrated with a feast of sashimi, baked fish and a miso garlic tataki all made from the fish we caught along with some pork hot pot and some of the home-made udon noodles the Don Don restaurant was famous for. All this went down beautifully with copious amounts of sake and beer.

Thank you once again for such a great time Shimada family!

Anyway here are some pictures.

Happy New Year Folks! I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday with plenty of fishing, friends and family. I’d like to begin the year with a sale of my shirts to clear out inventory for new shirt orders so I have created a new page dedicated to shopping where you can buy the Bangkokhooker shirts online via Paypal or bank transfer. Unfortunately I am still trying to figure out this international shipping thing so please give me a little time international shoppers.

I’ve slashed the prices of both the t-shirts and the polo shirts and now the price is the same for all shirt sizes so our bigger friends can enjoy the shirts like everyone else.

*Offers end January 31, 2012!

T-shirt was B300 now B180

Polo shirt was B450 now B290

Shirt availability:

POLO Shirt B450 now B290

S 2
M 9
L 4
XL SOLD OUT
3XL 2
4XL SOLD OUT

Grey T-shirt B300 now B180

S SOLD OUT
M SOLD OUT
L SOLD OUT
XL 2
3XL 4
4XL 2

Blue T-Shirt  B300 now B180

S 3
M 1
L SOLD OUT
3XL 4
4XL 4

I will be ordering a new batch of shirts in the next few days, are there any new colour combinations or shirt styles you would like to have?

Remember, Bangkokhooker’s Fishing in Thailand is an organisation that strives to promote fishing in Thailand and the distribution of free honest information across the world regarding the subject. Your patronage helps me pay my bills. Once again thanks for reading, wherever you are!

Deep-fried threadfin

A few days ago I went fishing for four finger threadfin with Alex. The threadfin also happens to be one of my mom’s favourite fish. Unfortunately the majority of our catch were small and not big enough to fillet into generous portions. Fortunately, during my trip to Tunisia, I encountered a pretty useful way for preparing small-sized fish by dusting them in spice and flour before deep-frying them until they are golden brown. This recipe below is more like my own interpretation of the dish and it is very flexible to be changed.

Ingredients:

10-15 small fish, gutted and cleaned

2 tablespoons of cake flour

3 tablespoons of corn starch

3 tablespoons of curry powder (or a combination of herbs and spices of your choosing)

Salt and pepper for taste

Cooking oil

Recipe:

1. Mix the flour, starch, curry powder (or a combination of herbs and spices of your choosing), salt and pepper together in a large mixing bowl.
2. Add fish to mixing bowl.
3. With a pair of tongs, coat the fish in the flour mix until the fish are completely covered.
4. In a deep pot, heat up two inches of cooking oil until it starts to smoke or reaches about 170 Celsius.
5. Using the tongs, pick the fish up, shake off excess flour and deep fry in oil for three to four minutes or until they are golden brown. Don’t overcrowd the the pot, leave room for movement and even heat distribution.
6. When golden brown, remove fish from oil, strain the oil, sprinkle salt and pepper and serve with lemon or lime.

Bang Pakong is a beautiful place

Back in March earlier this year I met my fishing buddy Alex for the first time. He was one of my readers and a usual commenter on the posts. Over time we eventually connected and he took me out to my first trip to the Bang Pakong River (read the story here). It was quite the lackluster trip to the brackish river save for one decent-sized boseman croaker that I hooked. Apparently we had come on a bad day.

So many months passed by and we waited for some news regarding the river being in fishing season again to surface. After a while, we forgot about it. That is, until one day when Alex looked through the fishing forums saw plenty of posts of people finding success at Bang Pakong River. It was the season of the threadfin (more specifically the four finger threadfin or “plaa kurao” in Thai) and people were pulling these fish out by the numbers. The high water level of December had brought them back from the sea and in to the river.

Not long after, Alex took the initiative to call our boatman from our previous trip. He was already booked. Alex tried several other numbers posted on Siamfishing.com. All of them were busy with other customers and booked all the way until January 8, 2012. One guy even laughed and said, “good luck”. It looked like it was time to abandon all hope but then Alex reached one boatman who was particularly more picky than the rest. His name was Num and he ran a small ice making business that supplied to the nearby restaurants Bang Pakong. Num had bought himself a boat a while back and restored it so that he could go on his own fishing trips in the river. One day, he took a customer out to fish. The customer found a lot of success and posted his pictures up to the fishing forums along with Num’s number. Soon enough he was getting calls every day but he didn’t just take anyone that called. He already had his own ice business, the money he makes from the fishing is really not his priority but rather the fun he could have with others so he is quite picky with the people that call him to request his fishing services. For us, Num’s pickiness meant that he was available to take people out during a time where finding a boatman was impossible. And even luckier for us, he took a liking to my half-Thai half-German friend via the phone. Maybe it was Alex’s thick German accent that got the boatman intrigued or perhaps it was the sound of desperation in his voice, from getting rejected by 15 boatmen, that got Num interested. Either way, we had a boat booked for Friday December 30, 2011.

Our boat was a wooden boat about 140cm in width and about 3m in length. It had the tendency to rock quite easily which made things a little uncomfortable when the ginormous shipping carriers passed us, on numerous occasions, with their massive waves.

Alex meeting Num

For the first time in a long time we were bait fishing as opposed to lure fishing. Our obsession with lure fishing was something that had taken over our lives. But, this time we were fishing for keeps and bait fishing was the way to do it. I had already told my mom that I was going to bring her back some threadfin to eat so I wasn’t going let her down. Armed with me was my trusty 7-feet light-tackle rod and a reel spooled with 15lb line. Along with that we set our gear up with a lead sinker, a swivel, 40lb shock leader for those sharp teeth or barnacles and a number 14 Gamakatsu hook. For bait we used small shrimp, both live and dead.

Bait but also dinner if we don't use them all.

The fishing seemed simple enough: put the bait on the hook; cast the line out and let the line sink to the bottom; reel in slack until line is stiff and wait with rod in hand, for the bite before setting the hook. This really brought me back to my days as a boy visiting my friend who lived on a property stocked with tilapia. There, we used the same set-up but with bread in place of the shrimp. The trick back then was to point the rod down with the tip of the index finger touching the tension of the fishing line coming out of the spinning reel. With the fingertip, feel the fish nibble at the bait; this is indicated by short little taps on the line. When there is a sudden and constant pull on the line that is when the fish has taken the bait and the hook must be set by snapping the rod back firmly without having it swing back forward. Now reel in the fish quickly making sure that there is not a single moment of slack in the line. It was the same old trick that worked back then and it was the same old trick that worked even now while out on a boat in the brackish water of Bang Pakong River.

Some fishing gear ready to catch dinner.

Over the coarse of the entire day the three of us landed plenty of threadfins, some brackish water catfish and other species of fish that I wasn’t too familiar with. Num would anchor the boat somewhere and we’d drop in our lines and fish. We went to several locations, passing by mangroves, large shipping carriers carrying gas with big letters saying “no smoking”, a golf course, abandoned barramundi farms (due to the flood this past year), mussel farms and even the opening to the Gulf of Thailand. It really was a diverse river that blended agriculture, industry, the recreational and nature quite interestingly.

Shipping tents... HUGE...

NO SMOKING... please.

These suspended fish farms (for barramundi) have been abandoned since the great flood of 2011

The mangroves.

Engraved catfish.

Alex with a largfin croaker

Finally a threadfin!

A close up.

The four finger threadfin is a fish with a face that looks like a muppet constantly having an "OMG!!!" face.

Suddenly at sunet...

We have a winner! Alex lands a striped sea catfish.

By the end we had landed around thirty fish in total. Just at dusk, Alex lands himself the biggest fish of the day a striped saltwater catfish that weighed a little over a kilo; a giant compared to all the little guys we have been landing. For once, the catch and release fishermen were going to go home to their families with some fish. The next day I coated the fish in a light coat of flour and spices, deep-fried it and served it to my family for lunch and it was a big hit (I’ll post the recipe in the next few days).

The day's catch!

At the end of it all, Alex and I laid out our day’s hard work out for a photograph of our bounty with big smiles on our faces. According to Num, we had encountered quite a slow day but we couldn’t care less, it was already thirty times better than the last trip and at the end we had loads of fun.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

1. Fishing gets expensive

First you start off cheap, you don’t really know what to buy so you go for the crappy gear that wouldn’t break the bank. A B500 reel, a B300 rod and a small selection of lures and other tackle ought to do right? Wrong.

Soon enough you will start realising that the cheap rod and reel breaks quite easily, the lures don’t catch any fish and the other tackle is just not enough. So you get a new rod and reel. This time of a better quality but then you realise that the rod’s stiffness is more appropriate for only topwater lures so you buy more lures to suit the rod’s purpose. But what about the fish that hang at other depths? So you buy a new rod. But then you realise that the cheap monofilament line you bought has too much stretch so you switch to the B500 a roll braided line so that the fish would not get away as easily. But then what tool do you use to get it out of the water? What camera will you buy to capture the moment? What sort of sun-proof clothing should you buy? What about that new wooden frog that’s all the rage these days?

This is a small portion of the spending.

The list goes on. It never ends. Whether if it is bait, lure or fly fishing, there’s always an opportunity to spend more money because you can never own enough toys as a fisherman. The fisherman starts from necessity and soon moves on into excess. And that’s just gear. There’s also guide feeds, boat fees, pond fees, accommodation fees and petrol prices, which leads us to the next thing…

2. There is usually a lot of driving and that’s pricey too

Unfortunately for me, I live in the heart of Bangkok city and that translates to stinky canals and a river lined up with shipping tankers, no hiding place for a trophy-sized giant snakehead. Sure it’s still fishable but it’s really not that great and full of compromises.

Just driving to somewhere like Pilot 111 is already a 100km journey there and back. Doing that on a weekly basis really cuts into your paycheque and that is a local drive. A drive to the reservoirs or the fishing piers can be anywhere from 200-800km worth of total driving.

Also this is Thailand, there are plenty of drunken idiots on the road. I have yet to have a cross-provincial trip where I didn’t have to witness a car accident. Heck, I even got rear-ended by a taxi driver who fell asleep at the wheel.

Remember this crash?

As icing on the cake, with me being a person who is genetically predisposed to falling asleep on the wheel, driving these long distances can sometimes be a bit of a torture and potentially lethal. Just ask Doc, he has witnessed first-hand my falling asleep at the wheel with my eyes still open. It could have cost us our lives had he not woken me up. Speaking of sleep…

3. Your sleep patterns get all messed up and sleeping pills become your best friend

A regular person usually wakes up at around 6am to be able to leave the house by 7am in order to commute and reach work by 8am. Some who are luckier may have their schedules pushed to an hour later. A fisherman’s schedule is heavily restricted by many factors. His limited off days from work being one of them, restricts his ability to slowly go to destinations and make the best of his fishing. Most of the time the location will be far away and he will only have one free day to get there and fish so with that being said he’ll have to wake up as early as 3am just so that he can drive all the way to another province to get to the fish by sunrise.

This makes life so much easier

With all the excitement of the trip it’s really hard to fall asleep. I have this problem every. Single. Time. After some experimenting and some accidental hallucinations I finally found the sleeping medication that worked for me and the tiredness that comes with never sleeping goes away. But because of these schedules, a fisherman is usually going to go through very long days which leads us to…

4. Balancing fishing and other aspects of your life can get difficult

Fishing is a time consuming activity. As mentioned above there are only a certain amount of days a week a working man can go fishing and then there’s the driving and early mornings. Balancing that with an important dinner or birthday party. Unfortunately people don’t like throwing parties and social dinners on the weeknights and for the fisherman that means having to either pick between fishing or the party or both.

For a while it was not uncommon for me to go through the weekend with 35 consecutive waking hours. Try to sleep at 10pm on a Friday night only to be too excited to fall into slumber, get up at 4am Saturday morning from a sleepless night to leave the house at 4:30am in order to drive to the reservoir by 6am,  see the sunrise, fish in the sun all day, see the sunset, drive back to Bangkok, clean up and go out for your best friend’s birthday party until 2am, oh but wait, he wants to go to an after-party and finally get home by 4am Sunday, the time I woke up. Having been awake since Friday 7am and going to bed at 4am on a Sunday with an entire Saturday without an sleep save for some power naps to save myself from sleeping on the wheel. Picking the “both” option usually meant getting really sick when its all over from the fatigue.

5. Sometimes, you fail, a lot

After going through all that trouble there’s the subject of failure. After all that driving, the sleepless nights, the money spent and hours upon hours standing in the sweltering sun you will, many a times, fail. You came a day late or day too early. Or perhaps you didn’t buy the right lure. Or in your sleepiness only brought half your equipment. When you return to the city your friends ask the usual questions, “so did you catch anything?” to which you shrug your shoulders and shamefully declare, “no, I didn’t catch anything”.

I’ve failed so many times. At one point the only logical thing to do was to quit and pick a less intense hobby. One that allows for a normal schedule like everyone else that costs a little less and maybe one that also has the occasional cute girl to do with like yoga or painting. I started asking myself questions like, “why are you still doing this? It friggin’ sucks!” I failed so much I was seriously close to just dropping fishing and moving on but I didn’t and that’s because…

6. Success is sweet

Just like anything else in life failure is like the rung of a ladder that needs to be climbed to reach success. For each time you fail, you get closer to the top even if it doesn’t seem that way. Even if it means more sleepless nights, more long drives and more money spent it’s all okay. It gets easier and easier each time and soon enough you learn how to adjust your sleep patterns, you learn which gear to buy to succeed and not waste money, you learn to carpool with your friends to get places easier, you learn better techniques and improve your overall skill and most of all you land the fish of your dreams.

So, so sweet...

I still remember my first sweet taste of true success. It was epic. After all the failing and all the sacrifices it finally paid off and that was the first time I felt like all my efforts were worthwhile. No one had ever told me any of these things about fishing and if I had to do it all over again I would probably change a few things here and there. I’d probably start off with better gear and not go to as many parties. What about you my fellow hookers what are some of the things about fishing that no one ever told you about and what are some things you wish you could have told yourself from the past?