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Newsletter March 2017

Newsletter Archive

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

5 STAR FISHING AT ITS VERY BEST

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

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The full moon rises over The Anglers Rest. Now that’s what you call a local.

March continued with the prolific fishing that we had enjoyed throughout February and it was a common occurrence to hear the whistles going off around the lake in unison which at times had our gillies rushed off their feet. The arapaima went on a bit of a feeding frenzy especially around the full moon time and you’ll see numerous shots of delighted anglers holding their prize ‘Arri’s’ within this month’s newsletter.

I have news of a competition that I have been privileged to organise for next year, the first week of July 2018. We are closing the resort to the public for a 7 day period to accommodate the competition which is as follows:-

COMPETITION WEEK 1st July 2018

We are looking for a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 12 anglers to book a 7 night, 6 day fishing holiday on this date and the angler who weighs in the heaviest carp during the week will have the cost of the accommodation and fishing costs refunded in full. It’s as simple as that. Catch and weigh in the biggest carp and you’ve got yourself a free holiday!

Wives and partners are more than welcome to attend at no extra cost. Up to now we have 8 confirmed bookings for this competition which promises to be a fantastic week for those who enter so if you fancy grabbing one of the remaining places and trying your luck over here in paradise, contact enquiries@jurassicfishingthailand.com to confirm your interest and we’ll send you all the details.

FOOTNOTE:- Unfortunately, if you catch a 300 plus pound arapaima during the week, it won’t count in the competition……. but the trophy photo will be priceless!

So, just to get away from the mayhem at Jurassic once again for a few days and at the same time continue with my Thailand travels, Neti and I booked into a small resort on an almost uninhabited island not far off the Burmese coast called Koh Phayam. This place was stunning! Thailand has without doubt some of the most beautiful islands that I’ve ever been to in my life and there’s still places to visit in this country that is like going back fifty years to how it must have been before the avalanche of tourism arrived.

The only downside was that we decided to go down to as near as we could get to the island by train and if you’ve never had the pleasure of travelling on a Thai train, here’s a bit of advice …… fly! Thailand has a long long way to go before they reach even half the standard of other Asian countries such as Japan for instance and if I had to describe the rail system in Thailand in one word, I’d say ‘painful.’ Why painful? Well, put it this way, I travelled on a 200 mile journey scheduled to take 4 hours ….. It took six and a half! Combine this with the fact that the cost of my fare was just over a quid and Neti travelled free because she’s Thai and you’ll get the picture of the quality of the service offered with that amount of revenue rolling in. Also, not forgetting that almost half of the rolling stock are converted WW2 Japanese troop carriers…… I think you’ll get the picture!

P.S. Forgot to mention my dog Alfie was on that train too and his fare was two quid! Can’t really get my head round that one to be honest, my fare’s a quid to sit on the seat but little Alfie pays double to sit under the bloody thing ……Only in Thailand!

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The beautiful unspoilt island of Koh Phayam.

Well that’s my Thailand travel information bit over for this month so back to Jurassic Mountain.

There was one tiny gripe amongst the many compliments that we received here this month and it was one that applies to those who may be physically impaired or who are just plainly and simply …… Old! One or two of our ‘elderly’ anglers have experienced a degree of difficulty in getting back out of the water after their photoshoot and have suggested that some form of small steps might be made available. I can relate to this because I saw one old guy that I’m sure was having a stroke when getting out of the lake but I think the small fact that he’d just been playing a 300 pound arapaima for the last hour and a half in almost a hundred degrees of heat might just have had a little bit to do with it. Seriously though, I also sometimes have a little problem when getting out of the lake and, depending on the amount of Thai beers consumed ………. An even bigger problem when I fall into the bloody thing!
Nevertheless, for those of you who do require a helping hand or simply because you ‘ain’t no spring chicken anymore,’ you’ll be pleased to know that a nice new sparkly aluminium set of steps are available at reception for your convenience. Hmm, who’s gonna be the first one to ask for them?

Another bit of good news for you is that although the Jurassic reception doors will be pulled closed at around 9pm nightly, your drinks will still be served from the Anglers Rest until midnight. So whether you wish to stay in the comfort of the restaurant patio area, take advantage of the lakeside sala’s or just mingle in the bar and maybe take in a bit of premiership football too, the choice is entirely yours. Our midnight closing time will be particularly pleasing news for our late arrivals and for those insomniacs who fancy a few stiff drinks before last orders. As you’ll normally find me propping up the bar, I’ll look forward to seeing you in there.

Before we get onto the anglers reports, I’d like to answer this month’s ‘Why do we’ question which is:-

WHY DO WE AT JURASSIC SUPPLY YOU WITH SO MUCH BAIT?

The amount of bait that we supply on a standard carp and predator all inclusive two rod package consists of 10 kilos of 25mm high protein carp pellet and 10 kilos of prime deadbait.

The first and foremost reason why we supply what we consider to be more than an adequate amount of bait is because, as in every other aspect of your Jurassic Mountain experience, we want you our customers, to leave here with nothing but total satisfaction in every department possible and that includes the amount of bait we supply you with. Better to supply too much bait than not enough is our motto and therefore you’ll discover that there are no hidden extras in not only the bait department but in every other department of your holiday too.

Additionally, there is of course our alternative bait freezer that’s stacked with weird and wonderful offerings that anglers can turn to and purchase for a small extra charge if and when they feel the need to do so but this is purely and simply a matter of choice and, I’m very pleased to inform you, not a well hidden necessity.

Secondly and even more importantly, our gillies are under strict instructions that at the end of each and every angling day, all surplus baits are to be deposited into the lake therefore promoting continuous growth of our ever expanding stock of fish which ultimately will benefit all concerned in as much that we at Jurassic are proud to have a fishery that’s home to untold numbers of heavy, fit and healthy fighting fish and most importantly, that you lucky anglers will be the one’s who’ll not only experience the ultimate thrill of fighting with these brutes but the feeling of utter euphoria you’ll get when you actually get to land one ! And that readers, if I say so myself, answers the ‘why do we’ question for this month in a nutshell !

Right, let’s now take a light hearted look at some of the antics of a selection of anglers who graced Jurassic Mountain for the month of March. My apologies are extended to those who visited us and who didn’t get a mention, it’s nothing personal, there’s just far too many of you for me to keep up with. Here goes .

The main cover photo winning our anglers photo of the month award is of Tony from Oxford who caught this monster carp during his stay here. Tony, being 73 years young and with his lovely wife were treated to this holiday of a lifetime by their son Paul who’d actually caught and landed this very same fish on a previous visit here a couple of years back. Paul and dad Tony fish together at every opportunity in the UK and Paul was thrilled to bits as he jumped in to help his dad lift this same fish which was now substantially heavier than when Paul caught it last time. I’m not sure who was the happier of the two but Paul was literally bursting with pride to see his ‘old man’ realise his ambition and land a monster fish that he’d only ever dreamt about landing in the whole of his life.Now THAT’S what I call a nice story.

P.S. 73 years of age and didn’t require the assistance of our new sparkly steps either. Just thought I’d mention it.

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Bruvver John on his second trip to Jurassic and with his second of two arapaima that he landed during it. Looks like trip number three is well on the cards then Bruv?
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Richard from Oxfordshire.

Richard from Oxford hadn’t fished since he was a kid and whilst staying at Jurassic with his pals, hadn’t too much desire to do so here either. However, one bright sunny morning after falling out of bed around 10 am after a heavy night on the beer, he subsequently enjoyed his breakfast before ambling down to the lake where he got his mate to cast out his dead bait for him and before he’d even digested his eggs and bacon, he was fighting with and subsequently landed this monster arapaima that smashed his personal best roach by almost three bloody hundredweight. You really couldn’t make it up could you?

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Our old friend Spike still manages a smile after making do with landing this smaller arapaima having lost one over twice the size earlier. Never mind Spike, if it’s any consolation, have you ever had anyone tell you that size don’t matter? Yeah? Well they lied!
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And yet another arapaima makes an appearance to complete a trio of ‘arri’ pics. It’s captor is John who must have spent weeks in the tattooist with the amount of artwork he’s got on him and he took great pleasure in giving this cracking arapaima the needle too because it definitely don’t look too amused.
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Memories of one year ago of the Martin Bowler hosted trip which was such a great success that it prompted Spike and Bruvver John to return here solo this month.

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The next hosted trip at Jurassic has been organised by Germany’s very own number one female angler, the lovely Claudia Darga (pictured above) for September this year. Can’t wait for that one! I’m sorry to have to report that the trip sold out within five minutes flat (no surprises there then) but the good news is that Claudia is already planning extra trips for the future. Not only will it be the trip of a lifetime set in beautiful surroundings, you’ll also be fishing with beautiful company too.
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Presumably the last time Jan left his rod on the bank……..someone nicked it!
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Chris from Yorkshire.

When Chris from Yorkshire first came to Jurassic just over a year ago, he was so excited to be here that he could hardly draw breath. Second time around and slightly less excitable than previous, he carried on where he left off last time by landing quality fish such as this beauty.

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A double hook up for Paul resulted in getting these two beauties to the net. Just take one moment to admire the beautiful scale formation on these Siamese carp. They really are truly stunning.
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Singapore based Perry is back yet again but this time with his family and he soon got into the fish including this nice carp. Great to see you again Perry.
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A lumpy Chao phraya catfish for Lucas caught out of peg one, a well known predator swim.

Finally, having been blessed with the extreme good fortune of being able to live on the resort and invariably propping up the bar whilst doing so, it ultimately brings me into contact with most of our visitors and I’ve met some really interesting people in the process but none quite so interesting as this next guy that I’d like to tell you about.

Some of you may recall a visitor here named Devin from Utah in the United States that I wrote about in the newsletter last month. This is the guy who said he’d fished the whole of the West coast of the States from Alaska down to Mexico and nowhere had he fished could hold a candle to this place. High praise indeed from over the pond. Anyway, this guy had stories by the bucketload and he looked the part too because if you can imagine a mean looking, hardened, rugged, ex marine, hunter type male, then this fella fitted the bill in every department. Our conversation covered quite a few topics and they were interesting enough that I’d like tell you about one of them.

Our chat inevitably got on to hunting and fishing. There’s nothing that this guy shoots that he doesn’t eat and he told me that he shoots everything and anything that moves because It all ends up in the freezer to be eaten no matter what it is. If that isn’t enough, he’s also a licensed law enforcement officer who packs a 45 calibre wherever he goes so given the opportunity and the motive, it’s more than a distinct possibility that the human species could also be targeted at any given time of the day. Some of his stories about how he hunts everything including elk were fascinating and his freezer, which I assume is as large as a bus, is regularly stocked with at least a 1000 lb’s of elk meat that he’d shot, gutted, skinned and butchered on the spot where it had dropped. The fact that he’d then have to carry a couple of hundred pounds of elk meat maybe two or three miles invariably in about two foot of snow to where his pickup was parked is impressive enough but when you consider this guy has only one bloody leg and walks with the aid of an artificial limb, it gives you an idea of the measure of the man. Fit as a butcher’s dog doesn’t even come close.

I refrained from asking him how he actually lost his leg but if it was whilst he was wrestling a nine foot grizzly with nothing but a bowie knife between his teeth, I really wouldn’t have been in the least bit bloody surprised.
Mind you, the way he describes how delicious the elk meat is and how a prime beef steak doesn’t even compare, it’s no wonder why this guy is one of the biggest self confessed carnivores on the planet. He made me chuckle whilst he was singing the praises of living entirely on meat and voicing his obvious disdain of vegetarians when he added, “Vegetables ain’t food, food eats vegetables.”

However, the main part of his story that really fascinated was when he described the carp that Utah lake holds in mind blowing abundance. Very sadly, I have to tell you that carp in the States are in general recognised as nothing more than an invasive species and are culled accordingly on a regular basis. However, carp fishing in a conventional manner is now becoming quite popular in the States………. but not it seems in Dev’s neck of the woods. Consequently, according to Dev, if you opened up a carp fishing tackle shop around Utah lake, you’d be stone skint in a week! They catch and slaughter them in their thousands by any means possible and they’re then ground down into meal food for the mink farm industry….and that’s a bloody big industry. Not a very nice situation for the carp I know and something that we at Jurassic Mountain wouldn’t even begin to condone, but sadly it happens every day.

In the winter they cut huge holes in the ice on Utah lake and net hundreds of tons of these carp so you can imagine just how many fish are actually in there. Also, bear in mind that Utah lake is a gigantic 385 square kilometres in size which is 30 miles long by ten miles wide as near as damn it and due to the fact that you can actually walk across it because it’s so shallow, it must be jam packed with them in less than a metre of water. They’re all about the size that you’d love to catch on a fishing trip in Europe and they can grow up to forty pounds in weight too, so one can only imagine the sport that you’d have if you fished for them in a conventional manner. If you need any confirmation as to the scale of this carp harvesting, take a look on you-tube. It’s unbelievable.

So I asked Devin if anybody ever fished for them properly and if they ever held carp fishing tournaments just as we do…… He couldn’t stop laughing! ‘Not where I come from’ he said.
Their idea of a carp fishing tournament is for boatloads of these blood crazed ‘fishermen’ to go out and slaughter as many as they can in as little time as possible with spears, clubs, bows and arrows and even guns and when the boat is full with around a ton of them, they unload them at the shore and go back out again for another bloody boatload! Unbelievable yeah? Words fail me!

Now I know this ain’t no laughing matter but can you just imagine the scene when this bloodthirsty bunch attend the prizegiving being held at Hillbilly Willy’s local barbecue and barn dance? No? I can, and here’s my tongue in cheek take on it…

With that well known medley, The Duelling Banjo’s being fervently played by two boss eyed guys who look remarkably similar to those couple of interbred’s who starred in Deliverance, Hillbilly Willy, being more than slightly half cut and who could well have got a part in that film too, gets up unsteadily onto his soapbox, spits out his chewin’ tobacco and hollers at the top of his voice….

‘ORDER FOLKS’…. Nothing happened! ‘ORR-DERR’….he shouts again in a futile attempt to deter them from tucking into the live hog roast.………
So he tried again, ‘FIRST PRIZE OF THE WHIS-KEEEE’….. That did it! The music stops abruptly and the mention of whiskey automatically gets everybody’s attention…… as if they won’t have already had enough by now anyway….
‘IN A TIGHT FOUGHT CONTEST THAT ONLY HAD A FREAKIN’ BUCK’S FART BETWEEN FIRST AND LAST PLACE…. every single person is now transfixed waiting for the result. You could hear a pin drop as he proceeded to announce the winner…
THE WEIGH IN RESULTS SHOW THAT FIRST PRIZE GOES TO…’ he pauses as if to savour the moment and with a toothless grin he screams…..
‘FIRST PRIZE GOES TO DIXIE NORMOUS WHO WEIGHED IN WITH TEN TON FOUR FREAKIN’ OUNCES !’
All hell breaks loose at this wonderful news and just before Willy falls off his soapbox, he yells…..
‘YEE HAA! THE DRINKS ARE ON DIXIE .. NOW LET’S GIT THAT GODDAMN LINE DANCING GOING!’

Well, it’s not at all like that I’m sure but we can still have a little laugh or two over it although the reality is that in general and very sadly, carp are treated as nothing more than pests. Call me old fashioned, but there’s no way on earth I could even be tempted to watch a fishing trip like that let alone celebrate fishing it…….. but each to their own I suppose.

No doubt some of you are thinking what I thought when I heard this so I just had to ask him the question ……‘Why the hell (or words to that effect) are you fishing for carp in Thailand then?’
‘Good question’ he answered and then explained that he and his pal Ed had always fancied a fishing trip abroad no matter where it was or for what is was, but being undecided on where to go, his buddy Ed threw a dart at the map of the world which ended up in the middle of nowhere in Antarctica but Devin had much more luck with the second one when it landed slap bang in the centre of Thailand.
So Dev and his buddy Ed spent hours doing their research and opted for the delights of Jurassic Mountain where they subsequently enjoyed the best fishing of their lives and which prompted Devin to utter that famous Arnie quote as he departed for the airport …’I’ll be back.’

Hmm, if Dev’s expertise when throwing a dart is anything to go by, he’ll be just as bang on target when spearing those unfortunate carp too, but maybe, just maybe, there’s a small chance that Devin’s Jurassic carp fishing experience might have contributed a little in him having a different perspective when fishing for this wonderful specie of fish again. I would certainly like to think so but not that it’d make the slightest bit of difference in the overall scope of things but hey, you’ve gotta start somewhere and if in our own small way Jurassic Mountain has contributed a little something that, for however unlikely as it may seem could eventually change their whole perception of carp and the manner in which they fish for them especially in Utah lake .… then it’s a case of ‘One small step for man and one giant bloody leap for carp and mankind’ as far as I’m concerned….. and you can quote me on that one!

Very finally, It goes without saying that because I meet so many people here at Jurassic. it’s virtually impossible for me to remember them all and so, as old age for me is not too far off on the horizon, I’d like to finish with my little Jurassic prayer that I seem to be saying a wee bit more often these days. It goes something like this…

Dear Buddah, (Well, I do live in Thailand, I thought it best I go with the local guy)
Grant me the wisdom to be able to forget the very few visitors who came to Jurassic that I didn’t like,
The good fortune to run into again the multitude that I did,
And the continued memory that will enable me to tell the bloody difference. Amen.

Well that’s it for this month except that I’d like to thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter and I sincerely hope that it tempts you to sample the delights that Jurassic Mountain has to offer. Hopefully we’ll have the pleasure of your company in the future where you might just realise your dreams and catch the fish of your lifetime. However, in the event that the fishing gods decree that the monster fish lurking in the murky depths eludes you on the day, at least you’ll return home safe in the knowledge that you’ve just fished at what is widely considered to be Thailand’s number one fishing resort and the closest place resembling paradise that you could ever imagine possible.

If you have any comments regarding this newsletter whether they be complimentary, constructive or critical, they’ll all be very gratefully received so kindly post them on the Jurassic Mountain newsletter post on our facebook page.

TIGHT LINES, SEE YOU ALL ON HERE NEXT MONTH.

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