Pending Redtail Catfish IGFA record caught on the fly in Thailand
by John Mitchell
Francois Helias, owner of Fishing Adventures Thailand, wrote to me about a new lake he had found that had large numbers of predators in it (Arapaima, Alligator Gar, Barramundi, redtail and various other types of catfish) and where lure and fly fishing where the preferred methods. Most of the lakes I have fished in Thailand tend to have a significant degree of colour and so make lure or fly fishing difficult and very much secondary methods. It sounded like this one might be different.
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Image courtesy of Fishing Adventures Thailand |
It took me a while to organise a trip. Eventually I got two days fishing on the lake on 30 June and 1 July. By this time we were into the rainy season. When I arrived there were plenty of big fish topping but, thanks to the rain, the colour of the water was pretty dark and my expectations of catching on a fly quickly dropped. Francois was catching fish using dead baits fished on the bottom. My wife started fishing and was quickly into fish using the dead baits as well. The baits they were using were small Tilapia and it seemed that even the live ones in the lake were generally near the bottom and tended not to swim about too much. I therefore set up a couple of eleven weight rods with intermediate and sinking lines and fished these working through a very big selection of flies that could be fished slow and on or near the bottom throughout the first day.
Despite eight or nine hours hard fishing, constantly changing flies and working my way around the lake, I didn’t have a single take on a fly until the last half hour when some Arawana appeared as it got dark and I was able to catch one of them on a Cicada dry fly on a five weight rod.
On the second day, I came back with new ideas on flies and worked my way through a large number of them, using the sinking and intermediate lines, without any luck. In the afternoon I noticed some Tilapia were in the edges of the lake and higher up in the water. I switched to a floating line with one of my Yak Keeler flies, a yak haired fly with a keel of lead on the hook to make it swim point up. It is a fly I developed from a fly Chris Beech had written about in the Australian magazine, FlyLife. The one I used was my German Yak Keeler – it has black, red and yellow hair. Dark to work better in the dark water.
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Image courtesy of Fishing Adventures Thailand |
Within five casts, using a very slow retrieve, I had the line ripped out of my hand as something grabbed the line and shot off across the lake. As the line shot out a small knot appeared in the fly line but fortunately it pulled out as the knot hit the rod ring. A heart stopping moment but I eventually got the line under control as the fish started to work down into the backing. With 250 yards of backing on the reel, I didn’t think I would need to move but within a short time the line was a long way out and not much seemed left on the reel. I had to give chase and eventually got far enough along the lake to start to retrieve some line. The fish slowly turned and after a series of runs I had it in close. The issue then was to lift its head. This took a long time but it slowly started to come up and we finally saw it was a Redtail Catfish. Eventually I got it in close enough and Francois’s guide was able to net it.
For more details on fishing with Jean-Francois Helias and his Fishing Adventures Thailand team, please click here.