Newsletter March 2016

Catches, entertainment and news from Thailand’s only exclusive syndicated sport-fishing venue.

Welcome once again to the Jurassic Mountain newsletter that gives you all the news, gossip, catch reports and light hearted anglers antics that relates to this Thailand fishing paradise for the month of March. A big thanks to all the new faces and returning guests who succumbed to the gravitational pull of our Thailand fishing paradise, it was our pleasure indeed to welcome you all to Jurassic Mountain Resort and Fishing Park.

How would you fancy your very own lakeside fishing lodge perched a few metres from the bank of Jurassic Mountain lake, just a stones throw from your swim which enjoys majestic mountain views across the lake that can only be described as ‘out of this world?’ Yes, to most of us this is only a dream but here at Jurassic Mountain dreams will become reality for a select few anglers as Jurassic’s management team are now taking in expressions of interest for Phase III villa’s. If you would like further details on how to become an owner of your very own piece of heaven complete with lifetime fishing rights here at the Mountain, please email enquiries@wordpress-1242400-4445492.cloudwaysapps.com. If you thought this place was fabulous already, wait until you see the finished article….. it’s gonna be mind blowing.

Well here it is readers. This is my 12th newsletter which means you’ve now had the pleasure (or displeasure whichever the case may be) of reading my limited literary talents for one year solid and I thank you for your patience in this regard.
This also means that I’ve now lived continuously here at Jurassic Mountain for over one year and I don’t know where that years gone …… It’s flown by. I can honestly say that I’ve adored living here in this fantastic place and being able to write the newsletters within my bucket loads of spare time is something that I’ve really enjoyed too. The day’s just seem to fly by and I very often don’t even know what day it is let alone wonder where it went.

One of the great advantages of living at The Mountain is that I get to meet over a thousand people during the year and which, having met, I now have many more people that I’m privileged to call and class as my friends. Another advantage is of having the great pleasure of being able to witness the sheer delight expressed by many as they land their fish of a lifetime and, trust me on this, I’ve even witnessed a few become emotional when the reality sinks in at what they’ve just achieved. So, lets complete a whole year of writing the newsletters by taking a look at a selection of anglers and a light hearted look at their antics who graced Jurassic Mountain for March.
My apologies to those who wanted a mention…..and didn’t get one, and to those who did……. and wished they hadn’t. Here goes……

March saw Martin Bowler along with ten UK anglers all raring to get going for the first Martin Bowler guided tour experience here at Jurassic Mountain. Before I disappeared off for a few days break to Vietnam with my son Jimmy, I spent the first day of their Jurassic experience walking endlessly around the lake to see how they all fared. This is how it went …….

First blood went to Phil from Nottingham who landed an arapaima around the 100 pound mark out of “Mountain View”, peg 3 closely followed by Les, also from Nottingham in “The Bay” in peg 4 whose first fish was an Amazon redtail which wasn’t the biggest redtail in the lake by any means but was big enough to whet his appetite in anticipation of further things to come. Meanwhile Richard from Devizes fishing on the opposite bank in peg 11 was visibly shaking after he’d landed a Siamese carp around fifty odd pounds that had snatched his double pellet offering and which had beaten his personal best by almost twenty pounds. Things were really beginning to warm up when Phil who was enjoying himself on peg 3 added a beauty of a 70 pound Siamese to his earlier arapaima capture whilst Liam from Manchester on peg 12 banked a Siamese around the 45 and Jason from Silverstone who was sat on peg 15 kicked off with one just over the thirty. Another Nottingham lad Paul who opted for peg 1 cracked into but sadly lost an arapaima that snatched his floated live bait whilst Spike from Northampton got in on the act with a redtail of some 35 pounds out of “Lovers Retreat”, peg 9.

Into the afternoon we went and apart from the fishing warming up so it seemed was the weather where it was showing 35 degrees in the shade but Les in the Bay kept plugging away and had added two further redtails both around the thirty pound mark to his earlier capture whilst Clive from Stroud on peg 13 got in on the act with an Indian carp of about 30 pounds which temporarily put a hold on the case of ice cold beers that he was swallowing like they were going out of fashion. Back on peg 3 Phil landed a redtail of some 45 pounds which gave him the coveted hat trick of species and Richard on peg 11 added to his total with another couple of Siamese carp of around the 35 and an Indian at just over the twenty. Poor old Paul on peg 1 must have been wondering what he’d done wrong in a previous life when he hooked into yet another arapaima only to lose it again to the dreaded hook pull whilst Spike on 9 added another redtail that weighed in at 45 pounds.

As the witching hour approached coinciding as usual with the sun that was sinking slowly over the mountain range way out to the west of Jurassic Mountain, Les on 4 smacked into a Chao phraya catfish at 40 pounds, Phil on 3 continued his red letter day with another Siamese that tipped the scales at 60 followed by another one at 40, and right at the last knockings Les rounded off his day with another redtail at 30 pounds as well.

Phew! Not a bad start at all for the lads but way too much action for yours truly for one day. I’m looking forward to my few days on a Vietnam beach landing nothing more than a few cold beers and I left them all to carry on with it again tomorrow.

So, three days later and having enjoyed my little Vietnamese jaunt with Jimmy, I returned to Jurassic to catch the last few days action and when the moment came that they all reeled in for the last and final time, the fish captures made quite impressive reading as a total of 116 fish were landed in all including Richard’s contribution of 28 fish and a magical Siamese carp of 180 pounds landed by Roger from Nottingham that got him stood on the winners rostrum in terms of the best specimen capture of the week but most importantly, it gave the Nottingham contingent bragging rights in the unofficial North v South competition that took place along with the friendly banter that went with it.

Well, the first Martin Bowler Jurassic experience turned out to be a great success and a fantastic week it was indeed. Apart from the 28 fish that Richard landed and the cracking 180 pounder that fell to Roger, I believe a special mention is warranted for John from Swindon who worked his socks off all week to land his quota of fish and apart from a cracking 60 pound Redtail that he got to the net, pride of place must surely go to the magnificent 88 pound Siamese that he landed whilst fishing on a waggler. That is definitely one of the biggest carp landed here using this method and I’d go as far to say as one of the biggest carp landed with this method on the majority of other fisheries too but unfortunately for John it’s not the biggest carp that’s been landed here at Jurassic using a waggler as a Siamese of 152 pounds fell to this method a couple of months back. Nevertheless, John should take pride in the fact that he not only landed a fantastic specimen fish in pristine condition but one that also showed absolutely no signs of ever being hooked before. This fish is almost certainly one of our originally stocked carp that not only had almost trebled in weight since its introduction to the lake but also one that had managed to avoid capture in doing so. That in itself is a fine achievement and one that John should be particularly proud of because this capture is definitely up there and included within the catalogue of golden moments that are etched in Jurassic Mountain’s history. Well done indeed John, you made sure the Northerners didn’t have it all their own way.

And so as we bade farewell to this fine group of lads, congratulations were extended to Martin Bowler himself for organising his very first Jurassic Mountain hosted trip which turned out to be a fantastic and memorable experience for all those lucky enough to have experienced it.

So if you’re tempted to join Martin here in the future, he’ll again be hosting another trip in 2017 but you’d better get in quick because these lads have all vowed to return. Says it all really.

Another angler who arrived with Martin Bowler was one of the UK’s most competent carp anglers, a certain Gary Archer who has landed more specimen fish than most and we were very proud to welcome him here at Jurassic Mountain. It didn’t take Gary too long at all to display his angling prowess as the following photo shows ……

And so as one group departed from Jurassic Mountain, in came the next wave of anglers who were all looking to land the fish of their dreams. We had regular visitor Gary and his wife Debbie who arrived for a 7 day stint and who landed a treble figure arapaima on his very first cast which was followed shortly with a fine redtail that got them both into the water for the shot as shown in the following photo……

From Spain came Ramon who managed to get a 250 pound plus arapaima safely into his castanet. Ramon doesn’t understand a word of English and it was quite amusing listening to Jules giving instructions to someone who didn’t have a bloody clue what he was talking about. Anyway, all’s well that ended well as Ramon landed this cracking fish without any mishaps much to the delight of everybody who’d gathered to witness the feat including Jule’s who showed delight and finally relief that another of Jurassic’s monsters was released safe and sound to fight another day for the next lucky angler who manages to lure him to the net.

We welcomed Jacques from France who is not only a qualified midwife but who took great pleasure in telling me that wherever he fishes, he invariably lands the heaviest fish of the day and that he holds the lake record on no less than six carp lakes throughout France would you believe? It was during one of his angling sessions in France that his phone rang and a farmer explained that his wife was on the verge of giving birth.
So having packed up his gear quickly, he hurried off straight to their farmhouse just in time to safely deliver a first son for the farmer. Realising that he didn’t have any scales to weigh the little fella, he took his fishing scales from his tackle box and used them instead. He was very happy to report that the baby boy weighed in at a very healthy twenty two pounds four ounces.

Tom, a freelance photographer from up there in deepest darkest Yorkshire namely Bradford had a most enjoyable start to his extended visit here by catching three arapaima during his first three days on the lake. Throw in a bunch of Siamese carp to 60 pounds to go with his best arapaima that tipped the scales at 155 and you’ll get the picture of just how enjoyable it was for Tom.

Clive, our chimney sweep from Stroud and the last of the Martin Bowler contingent had naturally decided to stay on for another week here at Jurassic Mountain where he caught numerous fish during his extended stay and he must have really enjoyed himself because on his departure he proceeded to give high fives and hand slaps with his gillie.
So as we bade Clive a fond farewell to no doubt shove his brush up customers flue pipes and chimneys with increased vigour which will of course enable him to return here sooner rather than later, we welcomed returning guests to Jurassic which included Eddie Singleton from Manchester who now regards this place firmly as his second home, Scott Bradley from New Zealand and Steve all the way from Detroit.
Steve evidently does quite a bit of what is referred to as ‘ice fishing’ on The Great Lakes and it was good to see him back once again to try a bit of ‘nice fishing’ here instead.

We welcomed two brothers Michael and Albert from Wolverhampton up there in ‘The Black Country.’ Albert is a confirmed non drinker and I had the pleasure of chatting with them in The Anglers Rest one evening. Well, it was a sort of a chat because half the problem was that I couldn’t understand a bloody word they were saying but I deciphered that evidently the only time that Albert actually has a drink is when he goes on holiday with his brother. That’s one way of getting led astray in Thailand I suppose. I’m afraid that Black Country accent definitely isn’t up there with my favourites and you may remember that I mentioned in an earlier newsletter that it was in fact one of the oldest and most commonly spoken accents in England at one time and you may also remember that I mentioned that with everybody in England talking like that, it was little bloody wonder that they were all killing each other. Only joking boys, it was great meeting you and I trust that you’ll take my comments regarding your speech impediments in the light hearted manner in which they were intended.

But on a serious note, I would like to take this opportunity to say that there are no particular race or creed that I aim my so called humour at as I try to be non partial and have a little dig at all and sundry as It’s the only way that I can write the newsletter otherwise it would read like a fishmongers shopping list at cash and carry which is way too boring for yours truly I’m afraid. However, if any of my comments that manage to escape the censors delete button do happen to cause offence, then for that I apologise and please be assured that all complaints will be dealt with and binned accordingly and I’ll just plough on regardless writing for those who I trust are the majority of you who, like me are able to laugh at oneself and who actually enjoy reading this crap that I write.

So, that’s that out of the way and quickly moving on, that little chat we were having in The Anglers Rest? Well, with the much needed help of a translator it was mainly about the 3 hour plus battle that Michael had with a Siamese carp estimated at just a few pounds short of 200. Just thought I’d mention that too.

That well respected and extremely well organised tour company based in Crawley known throughout the travel industry as ‘Dive tours’ turned up on Jurassic’s doorstep for their annual angling experience. Unfortunately Steve the team leader is still suffering with his knee problem that he takes great pride in telling all and sundry the morbid details about including how it happened and one failed operation after the other and this definitely restricted Steve’s angling exploits somewhat but nevertheless he could always be found either immersed in the jacuzzi or propping up the bar in The Anglers Rest. However, on the morning that Steve couldn’t find anybody to bend their ear about just how his knee was doing that day, he decided to grab a couple of rods and limp around the lake to peg 12 where he proceeded to land a nice few Siamese carp and finally an arapaima of some 200 pounds which mercifully for all concerned gave him more than enough to talk about that evening in The Anglers Rest other than that bloody knee.

And the next photo is of the Black Country boys themselves, Michael and Albert who were almost (but not quite I’m afraid) rendered speechless when they landed this magnificent brute between them. Were these boys happy or what? Well, just take a look at their faces and if you didn’t know this before …………………. Youz show nows it now.

My final anglers report is on my son Jimmy who took the time off from his very busy business in London to embark on a 12,000 mile round trip just to see how his old dad was doing over here in Thailand. Once he’d ascertained that dad was doing quite nicely thank you, we jumped on a plane to Vietnam for a bit of father and son bonding arriving back at Jurassic a few days later to relax and recuperate with nothing at all to worry about except making sure we had a fishing rod in one hand and a cold beer in the other.
Although there’s normally a 6000 mile distance between us, I reckon Jimmy and I are as about as close as any father and son could be and a tale springs to mind of when we both set off to the Great barrier reef in Australia.

We’d jumped into a helicopter and landed on a small man made resort where there was an area where you could snorkel and every hour they made everybody get out of the water so that they could feed the thousands of fish who obviously knew this routine off by heart because as soon as the food stopped going in they all disappeared into the deeper water. There was a sign saying ‘ STRICTLY DO NOT FEED THE FISH’ but as usual, I thought ‘ Load of crap .’ We were snorkelling around the area with about twenty or so others catching the occasional glimpse of a fish or two when I came up with my brainwave. I turned to Jimmy and said ‘Pop up to that restaurant Jim and stick a couple of bread rolls down your shorts and we’ll feed ’em.’ So Jimmy being the dutiful son and always game for anything disappeared out of the drink and duly came back concealing the rolls down his shorts swaggering along like a porn star with the biggest pair of nuts previously ever seen on the Barrier Reef and, giggling like a couple of schoolkids, we swam out to give Nemo his little treat.
We stuck our goggled heads under the water and proceeded to break up the rolls when all of a sudden they spotted us. No, not the lifeguard….. the fish…..bloody hundreds of ’em..

Open mouths the size of dinner plates complete with teeth that looked like something out of a horror movie along with all of their mates were coming straight at us from out of the depths and to put it as mildly as possible, we shit ourselves.
We dropped the rolls and in an instant the nice calm water turned into a cauldron of teeth, fins, spikes, barbs and it was the worst jacuzzi we’d ever been in. The lifeguard who thankfully hadn’t noticed that it was us two stupid Poms who’d decided to put everybody at risk of being slashed to pieces was frantically blowing his whistle screaming at everybody to get out because some bloody idiot had put bread in the water. Kids were screaming and grown men were swimming away like crazy as if Jaws himself was on their arse but thankfully nobody got eaten alive and myself and Jimmy sneaked off to grab a couple of beers before they worked out just who it was that thought that the ‘No feeding’ sign was only there for decoration.

As I said earlier, Jimmy and I are about as close as any father and son could be and it seems only like yesterday that he was just a kid. I remember when my wife at the time went into labour with him midway during her compulsory game of bingo if my memory serves me correctly and I frantically phoned the hospital and told them the news.
‘She only wanted one number for a full house and she’s gone into labour,’ I shouted down the phone.
‘Is this her first child?’ the nurse enquired quite calmly,
‘No it ‘aint,’ I replied ‘This is her bloody husband.’

Meanwhile, back at Jurassic, for me the highlight of Jimmy’s visit was actually setting eyes on him again after six months but I think it’s safe to assume that the highlight for Jimmy himself was when his number came up and he smacked into a nine-0 blind ninety pound Siamese whilst fishing off of peg three. That’s my boy!

Oh yes, I almost forgot to mention it. Jurassic Mountain have implemented a new system for allocating the pegs to anglers. We used to do this on a first come first served basis but we had anglers almost sleeping on the clubhouse verandah every night so that they’d be first in line to have the pick of the swims. One particular fella didn’t even bother going to bed so he came straight from the bar and sat on the verandah all night to wait for the sun to come up. Unfortunately, having had one or two beers too many, he succumbed to sleep and left himself at the mercy of the mozzies who were obviously quite delighted with their feast that night because they literally bit him to pieces for his trouble.

So the new Jurassic Mountain swim allocation works like this. At 7:30 p.m every evening the draw will take place in the clubhouse. All anglers present pick a numbered ball out of the hat which represents the order in which they get to choose their preferred swim. Anglers not present for the draw are able to choose from the remaining swims.

But please spare a thought for Andy an expat now residing in Perth who arrived here with pal Danny from Crawley around 10pm on the night before they were due to fish. Having fished here a few times previously and completely unaware of the new draw system that had taken place, they got themselves up at 4.30 am and were well pleased to find they were the first in line to pick their pegs. That is until everybody else turned up bang on seven o’clock and with rods in hand gleefully skipped straight past the two early birds who on this occasion definitely didn’t catch the worm.
However, it didn’t turn out too bad for Andy and Danny because although they got to fish in a swim which they’d normally not have chosen, they still managed to land nine fish between them which wasn’t too bad at all really seeing as a couple of the more favoured swims produced only half this amount but day 2 got even better for Danny when he landed a Siamese around 85 pounds from another swim not normally favoured by the regular carp anglers. That’s fishing for you.

Well, that’s almost the end of my twelfth newsletter and I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading them as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them. As the positive comments regarding my newsletters just about outweigh the negatives that I received during this year (Well you can’t please everybody) I will assume that you wish me to continue plying you with my literary attempts and therefore I’ll be looking forward to writing next months edition that will also herald the start of my second year of living in paradise here at Jurassic Mountain Resort and Fishing Park.

And finally, to celebrate a whole year of newsletter writing, I intend to post a Newsletter Annual being a selection of what I consider to be ‘the best bits’ of the last 12 months newsletters. Look out for it in a couple of weeks, it’ll make good reading if you missed any of them.

Tight lines all.