Newsletter May 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 May. A big thanks to all the new faces and returning guests who succumbed to the gravitational pull of our ‘extreme fishing gem’ as it was indeed our pleasure to welcome you all to Jurassic Mountain Resort and Fishing Park.

May was hot, severely bloody hot. So hot in fact that the swimming pool was like getting into a very warm bath. Temperatures regularly got into the high thirties out in the open which made the sala’s complete with fans a very welcome relief indeed for the anglers who were brave enough to fish in the relentless heat. Those ice cold draft Chang beers at the end of the day never tasted so good I can assure you. Mind you, I’d still rather settle for this guaranteed weather in an endless summer than take pot luck with what we get in the UK. There’s nothing quite as demoralising as a chilly bank holiday Monday in the rain with the sun coming out on the Tuesday as you head off to work. Seemed to happen on a regular basis as far as I can remember.

So let’s take a look at a selection of anglers and a light hearted look at their antics who graced Jurassic Mountain in May. As usual my my apologies are extended to those who wanted a mention and didn’t get one, and to those who did……. and wished they hadn’t. Here goes……

First up is returning guest John from Denmark who when he fished here the last time caught carp to forty pounds. Well, that’s what I wrote in the December newsletter which was in fact a complete load of bollocks.
For a start his name isn’t John, it’s Jimmy and he actually caught 45 fish in a four day session with the biggest carp weighing in at just over the 100 so where I got this info from, I haven’t the faintest idea. Must have had a good few too many the night before I put pen to paper that’s all I can think of.
So having apologised to John, sorry, I mean Jimmy for the cardinal sin of undermining in print his fabulous efforts last time, I took special interest in him this time around and sincerely hoped that he would provide me with something in his 7 day session that I could crow about for him which would go some way in making amends.
Did he oblige or what? He most certainly did because he just carried on in the swim where he left off last time greatly assisted by locating a deep water channel some five rod lengths out from peg 2 and banked SIXTY FIVE fish in his seven day session. No, that’s not a typing error, sixty five specimen fish were landed by Jimmy with the best being a Siamese carp at 130 pounds and an arapaima at a 150.
Well you wont get better than that….or will you? Jimmy has vowed to return sooner rather than later so we’ll keep you firmly in the picture.

May saw the arrival of Robert from Hull in the UK. Robert works in the local abattoir and has spent the last forty years slaughtering pigs. Well someone’s got to do it if you want that pork chop haven’t they?
Reminds me of when I asked a married pal of mine if he had a mistress
‘No I haven’t’ he replied, ‘Why go out for a bacon sandwich when I’ve got a pig indoors?’

Robert took time off from the abattoir to enjoy a two day session here at The Mountain catching Siamese carp and redtail catfish for fun. Certainly makes a nice change from doing away with pigs I would think.

Ash from Stratford-upon-Avon in the UK came on recommendation from Stretton Honor who has caught the most species of fish in Thailand than anybody I know or indeed that I have ever heard of.
So it was fair to assume that Ash would want to give a good account of himself here at Jurassic Mountain in order to try an keep up with Stretton who, when he fished here a few months back, caught the largest Siamese carp that he’d ever caught in his life.
Well, Ash certainly performed well in the hard act to follow that was Stretton Honor. His first day saw 6 Siamese carp safely in his net, 2 at 30 pounds, 1 at 40, 1 at 60, 1at 80 and a cracker of a 100 pounder that made up the bag with redtailed catfish thrown in for good measure. That’s Ash posing proudly with one of his Siamese carp in the main newsletter photo and if that wasn’t enough to demonstrate to Stretton that it’s getting near the time for the old fella to move over and make way for the young blood that’s out to break his records, he steamed in with a bagful including a beauty weighing in at a 110 pounds on his final day here which also confirmed that Jurassic Mountain is now firmly established as the number one carp fishing venue. Looks like you taught the apprentice well eh Stretton?

Jurassic Mountain was pleased to welcome Paul Oliver who is the chairman of the well known Warlingham and District Angling Society down there in my old stomping ground in Surrey in the UK.
Paul arrived in Thailand with his girlfriend but flew back to the UK with his wife. Confused? Is Paul a two timing toe rag? Nothing quite as sinister readers, here’s an extract from Paul’s email which is self explanatory….

“I wanted to do something special for my 60th birthday and was delighted when our friends Andy & Jen and Craig & Laraine were up for the trip to Jurassic Mountain.
Our first full day (26th) was the day of my birthday so catching a beautiful Siamese a couple of hours in, made it just perfect. That would have been enough for me, I was totally made up already but adding a couple more during the day just added to the magic. Craig got the hang of things very quickly with 6 Siamese and a couple of Redtails on day one and was simply over the moon in going way beyond his wildest expectations. Even our self confessed ‘Noddy’ Andy who is one of our oldest seniors at 70 got in on the action with a couple of cracking Siamese.
The week just got better (and hotter) after that and despite spending much of the last day trying for an Arapaima I think we finished up with 40 fish between us, (although Craig did most of the heavy lifting). Pretty good for a first effort, particularly as we stopped for breakfast, lunch and cooling swims each day.
On our last night at Jurassic Mountain and after thirty years together, Anita and I threw one last surprise out to our friends in asking them to be witnesses at our wedding the next day. To say they were struck dumb is a gross understatement but we did indeed get married here in Hua Hin on the 30th.
If you want to give a shout out to the Warlingham boys in your Newsletter or media, I’m sure our other members would be more than interested and maybe potential future guests. Who knows?
Thanks again for a truly memorable visit to Jurassic.
With very best wishes for your continued success.
Kind regards Paul Oliver, Anita Evans, Andy & Jen Tickner, Craig Winchester & Laraine Hilton.”

Well that’s the perfect way to ‘Thai’ the knot and what a nice story that is. Also a high commendation for Jurassic Mountain itself which we thank you for. It was indeed a pleasure having you all here and we wish you two newlyweds all the very best for the future.

Footnote. If there’s any other couples soon to be tying the knot, maybe you should consider Jurassic Mountain as your wedding venue. We will be only too pleased to arrange your ceremony, reception and accommodation with your Thailand honeymoon here at Jurassic Mountain resort. It’s a wonderful setting for a wedding and we guarantee a perfect day and a fabulous stay for the happy couple and their guests. Please contact Jurassic Mountain for further details and you could soon be getting hitched by a Buddhist monk in paradise with one of the most stunning backdrops imaginable.

Nathan arrived for a one day stint with his pal Chris. a property developer in the UK. Not the greatest day for Nathan in Jurassic Mountain history but he still managed to bag a few Siamese carp up to the mid forties which particularly pleased him as he was travelling around Thailand with a specific aim of targeting this species.
Evidently the property developing business is booming in the UK which I find rather surprising with the cost of houses these days. It’s a fact that it’s the dream of the older generation to pay off their mortgages as quick as possible whilst at today’s prices it’s the dream of today’s young families to actually afford to get one in the first place.

Alan from Oxfordshire got his name up in lights by landing not one, but two arapaima in a one day session during his stay here at The Mountain. This is great news to those anglers who have tried but have yet to land one of these superb creatures. What’s that they say about waiting ages for a bus?

Matthew Young is without any shadow of a doubt one of our most prolific anglers here at The Mountain fishing continuous sessions without a break. That’s why he’s fondly known as ‘Mad Matt’ in this part of the world, playing his best fish into darkness tipping the scales at over 120 pounds.

Getting away from the angling side here at The Mountain, I’d like to tell you something about the wildlife that frequents the area.
Living in a sub tropical paradise has its many advantages and some disadvantages and I’ll tell you about both of these within the subject of the wildlife that is in abundance around Jurassic Mountain. We get to see many species of birds which I’ve always been really interested in especially when I was a kid who used to go out ‘bird nesting ‘ on a regular basis which is something that I now look back on as definitely not one of my better choices of hobbies in my life. So admiring the bird life is for me one of the big advantages of life here but there’s always a flip side to everything. As in beautiful wildlife you get the not so beautiful wildlife and sometimes and thankfully very rarely we get something that’s not quite everybody’s cup of tea.
For example, my son Jimmy was fishing here at Jurassic last year and it was one very early morning that I was sitting at our swim waiting for him with his pal Robin when he turned up.
‘Alright boy’ I said as I just about to thread a couple of pellets on my hair rig , ‘ You look a bit peeky mate’
‘F—–g peeky ‘ ? He said, ‘ I almost trod on a f—–g snake’ !
Now, as it normally takes something drastic to set young Jimmy off swearing although he has on the odd occasion been known to let rip especially in the event of his beloved Chelsea getting beat, I knew that he weren’t joking.
‘Snake’? I said but I’d definitely heard him right in the first place.
‘Yeah a f—–g snake Dad, what, you f—–g deaf’?
Obviously the bad tempered sod was still nursing a hangover from the previous nights pub crawl and I was tempted to say ‘ You sure?’ but thought better of it and said ‘Where?’
‘Over by the clubhouse where we eat breakfast ‘ he replied ‘and before you ask, it’s f—–g big !’
‘I’m gonna go and see if I can find him’ I said without completing baiting the hair,
‘Try telling someone whose interested’ said Jimmy picking up his rod and so, always the inquisitive, I left the irritable little git to get over his hangover and I walked the fifty yards or so back towards the clubhouse to see what all the f–k’s, I mean all the fuss was about.
I looked around the verandah and couldn’t see anything so I started to move the settees to see if it had hidden under one. As I pulled the settee away from its resting place, out of the corner of my eye I saw something move and there it was disappearing under one of the armchairs.
It was black and grey in colour about five foot long and actually quite a nice looking thing if you like snakes which I myself particularly don’t.
I quickly ran round the back and grabbed one of the empty bait buckets and sat there looking at the armchair trying to decide which way I was going to slide it when all of a sudden the snake slowly appeared from under it and started to slither across the ceramic tiled floor. Now don’t ask me why or what made me do it but I must have had a double dose of brave tablets that morning and I did my best Steve Irwin impersonation by crouching down behind him and I grabbed him around the neck, lifted him up in the air, dropped him in the bait bucket and slammed the lid on it. For those of you who don’t know, Steve Irwin was that Australian lunatic who used to wrestle Crocodiles and anything else that you’d run a mile from before he finally met his match and ended up being stabbed to death by a Stingray who’d definitely got out of the wrong side of the seabed that morning. It was a wonder that he lasted as long as he did as he was one complete fearless bugger, he’d wrestle with crocodiles ,pythons and even with T Rex if it was about….. but they got him in the end !
One time when I was in Australia with Jimmy, we were fishing just outside Cairns in the Mangroves for Mangrove Jacks when Jimmy hooked into a Stingray that took him over an hour to land much to the annoyance of the Skipper who regarded this fish as nothing more than a mere nuisance and just wanted to cut the line so that we could all get on with the ‘proper’ fishing but Jimmy weren’t having none of it. It was a decent fish too and probably weighed well over the hundred and, after a major struggle, Jimmy finally got him on board for the photograph making very sure that he stayed well away from that lethal barb that put paid to Steve Irwin’s existence. Obviously Steve must have been extremely unlucky as the Stingray that took offence to being put into a full Nelson got him with a lucky punch, or in Steve’s case, an unlucky punch straight through the ticker.
My only other experience of Stingrays was in the Cayman Islands where I took a boat trip out to the sandbanks where you could hop into about two foot of Stingray infested water to feed them. There was about fifteen or so of us on the boat and the Skipper gave us a little safety talk before we all jumped off onto the sandbank. He explained how you should stand completely still and hold a lump of fish on the middle of your chest and the fish who’d obviously done this a million times before would swim towards you and slide up your body to gently devour your offering. I was slightly dubious about the whole thing especially as these babies were up to a metre across and two metres in length and even more dubious especially when he warned us that under no circumstances were you to tread on one as this is the major factor of when your at risk from being whacked. All was going pretty well and there must have been fifty of these oversized flatfish enjoying their morning feed off of all the punters who were treading carefully around the sandbank when all of a sudden I heard the most horrendous scream. One American guy who was busy telling everybody that from where he came from Stingrays were far far bigger than these and obviously taking no notice of the Skippers warning, he brought his size nine foot straight down in the middle of one particular big buggers back who promptly took great offence and whacked the Yank straight through his calf. Well I’d never seen anything quite like this in my life. The Yank was now laid out on the deck of the boat with the most lethal looking nine inch pointed barbed harpoon straight through one side of his leg and out of the other. He was in a real bad way and I think he was in a state of delirious shock because he was coming out with all sorts of crap on top of the crap that the Yanks normally come out with and the sight of this barbed lump of bone protruding through his leg made two of the punters throw up. Well I think it was one punter that was actually sick by the sight of his leg with the other one throwing up at the sight of the first one throwing up. So, with chaos everywhere, our Stingray feeding trip was cut short and we headed back towards the dock to take Mr Inconsiderate to be picked up by the waiting ambulance that the Skipper had radioed ahead for. Picture the scene, they carried the now completely delirious Yank off the boat on a stretcher towards the ambulance past a queue of around a dozen people who were waiting to board the boat for their fun filled Stingray feeding trip when one of them enquired as to ‘ What happened to him then ?’ Now, me not being one to spoil people’s enjoyment, I realise now that I should’ve said that he’d had a stroke or something but I just couldn’t help myself. I said ‘ John Wayne just trod on a Stingray.’ It cleared the bloody queue! Mothers were now dragging their screaming kids away to try some other entertainment for the day and others just stood there with their mouths open wondering what the hell they’d let themselves in for before finally opting to wander off to do something far safer.

Anyway, where was I ? Oh yeah… So I’ve got this snake safely stuck in the bait bucket and I was debating who I could have a laugh with by asking them to fill my bucket up with pellets but I thought better of it and lobbed him into the next doors rice paddy and watched him slither away to freedom.
Later that day I was relaying the story to one of our regulars at Jurassic which he seemed very interested in as he evidently knows quite a bit about the local wildlife, ‘What sort of snake was it Steve’? he asked,
‘Ain’t gotta clue’ said I, ‘ Pretty big though.’
With that he got his computer out and showed me some photographs of the snakes that inhabit the area, ‘ Pick him out’ he said.
I looked at the screen and straightaway I saw him, ‘ That one’ I said pointing at it.
‘Congratulations’ he said, ‘You’ve just grabbed a King Cobra round the neck, you’re lucky to be alive.’
Evidently not a very wise move by yours truly as by all accounts one bite from that bugger and you’re ‘brown bread’ in about twenty minutes.
Definitely the last time I’ll be trying that manoeuvre if he ever decides to show his face around here again.

Well that’s it for my little story about the wildlife around here, please don’t let the couple of disadvantages deter you from seeing this wonderful place as they are only a very rare occurrence and nothing much to worry about. Having said that, it’s sod’s law I’ll get trampled to death by a rogue elephant on my way to the bar tonight …..never mind, I’ll take my chances and if you’re curious as to why I’m here in Thailand in mortal danger of being topped by some exotic unknown species, the answer is quite simple. Come and sample Jurassic Mountain for yourself and you’ll understand exactly why.

Tight lines all, see you next month.