food

April/May 2025 overlap

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Before my Thai adventure I had a couple of sessions at Rowde. The first I intended to return to fish the same pound but with a feeder, however there then followed a series of annoying glitches to my plan. Firstly I realised I had let my phone at home and when I walked down a boat was moored up exactly in the peg and there was no room to fish so I ended up on the CRT 2 peg that Gareth and I had fished previously. Fishing about 30m out with a basic non-fishmeal groundbait and double maggot I was soon getting plenty of bites on the Shakespeare bomb rod I was using. Hitting the bites however was another matter and a solitary roach and rudd were returned before I switched to worm, this slowed things down and eventually a slow pull on the tip resulted in a bream of 3-06. A small skimmer followed before the boats started and I packed up having fished 10-11:20.

Not to be put off I returned a week later and managed not only to remember my phone but actually get on the spot I wanted to fish.

Same pic as previously but this time I fished 9:40 – 11:20 using a 5m Chinese whip with double maggot over groundbait and loose fed maggot I had bites immediately ending up with 40 skimmers,25 roach,4 perch 2 roach and 2 gudgeon for approx 6lb plus a bream of 4-02 which the whip handled with ease.

I packed up shortly after a boat with Norwegian tourists passed through.

So the time for the adventure arrives! The journey went like this, Tuesday 29th bus from Calne to Chippenham, coach to Heathrow, evening flight to Bangkok arriving mid afternoon on the Wednesday. The first thing that literally hit me as I stepped off the plane was the wall of heat (approx 36C) but the airport was air conditioned and from touching down to me getting into the shuttle cab for the hotel it was 39 minutes- a highly efficient system. Gareth later informed me that the queues used to be 1.5hrs but a surprise visit by the country’s premier changed that as he was appalled especially as tourism is a major economy in Thailand and heads were knocked together and investment and changes made!

Gareth arrived at the hotel at 2am from Shenzen in China and after a short nap and a walk via an underground air conditioned connecting tunnel to the airport/rail station to get some breakfast we met our taxi driver at the hotel at 7:15am. A short 45minute drive sees us arrive at Bungsamran Fishery where Gareth had arranged a session up to lunch time with a guide. We were in Sala 7 which put us almost at the end of the row of salas coming from the reception area. We were a bit early and walked around the walkway where people were already fishing, several large fish were swirling all over the lake.

We met up with the guide Tom and his son Andy (who spoke English) and made our way to the sala. The lake is 80ft deep and the salas extend out in to the lake on stilts so effectively you are surrounded by water. As we got to our sala I spotted a huge shape in the water alongside the sala – an arapaima of 100lb+! The tackle and set up will need some explaining! Firstly the rods are about 5ft in length, matched with a reel of approx 8000 size loaded with heavy braid to a mono leader (to prevent lifting scales), the end tackle is a large sliding float with a wire emstadt type feeder with a short hook link of perhaps 3-4 inches. Bait- there is none on the hook just a foam line wrapped around the hook to form a small bead to “pop-up” the hook, this is the buried in a large jaffa sized ball of “lum” – a fine rice groundbait The groundbait was mixed in a large shallow metal bowl using a drill as we would in this country, the difference being that instead of a whisk attachment it was a simple “T” . The sala has an overhanging room to provide shade and a fan to keep cool! The walkways had a similar style roof which partly explains the short rods!

Gareth and I were sharing a rod and he insisted I had first fish! The rod is cast by the guide and laid down on the floor with the bail arm open and the line hooked over a bottle. The float bobs about like crazy and goes under but it is only when the bottle topples over that you can strike! Third cast, about 10mins, a bite and a firm strike sees a powerful fish take line off the clutch. I eventually managed to get some level of control and pumped the fish back to be netted – a Mekong catfish of 20kg (44lb).

Mekong 20kg

Gareth then had a Mekong of 50kg (110lb), my next was a baby of 10kg (22lb), Gareth follows up with a Siamese carp of 30kg (66lb), I then get in on the carp action with a Siamese of 40kg (88lb) Gareth then has a real battle with a fish that runs approx 150m to the left and is in danger of cutting on the next sala, fortunately the guide on the next sala was able to hold the line off the sala until the fish was clear, approx 15minutes later a huge Mekong has its head in the net, the guide has to swim to the next sala to get the large floating cradle and eventually the fish is safely “landed”.

Siamese carp (40kg=88lb)

A Mekong of 100kg- 220lb. Gareth is wobbly after the fight and has a sit down and drink! So Tom washes himself down and we are back in action. A short while later the bottle topples and I hook a fish that I cannot do anything with and the clutch is screaming, the fish surfaces way down the lake (I used a distance calculator to get an idea of how far as it was possible to identify where it surfaced) – 170m. Now I first began coarse fishing because as a 10year old I won a newspaper competition for fish of the week that gave me a coarse tackle wallet as a prize. The fish involved was a 40lb monkfish caught off the beach at Llangenneth, now this reminded me of the playing tactic of walking back and the going forwards while winding in – mobile pumping rather than static pumping- so that is what I did. About 12 minutes later we had the fish in the net but the cradle was on the sala on the right as they had also had a large fish, but fortunately they swam it back and incredibly another 100kg (220lb) Mekong was “landed”.

100kg (220lb) Mekong

You can see we wore butt pads which were essential plus we wore a glove on the rod hand for protection. Gareth had another Mekong of 18kg(39.6lbs) and I missed a bite as our bait ran out virtually at 1pm which is when we had planned to return to the hotel, gather our things, check out and travel to Jurassic via their taxi.

The draw for swims at Jurassic takes place each evening so it is completely random, Gareth drew ball 8 and decided on Swim 4 for the day. We were both sharing the swim and had three 10ft rods so decided on one predator rod down the side and two carp rods. After an hour the carp rod alarm screams off and I hit into a good fish with the 10ft rod. Eventually I manage to get the fish into the cradle- a Siamese carp of 80lb.

Siamese Carp 80lb

All fish at Jurassic never leave the water so you have to go into the water if you want a picture with the fish – waist deep margins are better than potentially 80ft to a non-swimmer like me!

The set-up at Jurassic is very good with very friendly staff and excellent facilities, however we were greeted with the news that it had been fishing very hard with some anglers blanking a couple of days during their stay! That was borne out by that being our only fish of the day apart from a tilapia of about 2lb that Gareth had on the predator rod- I said we would not count that as his “turn”.

Next day there were fewer on the lake and Gareth had drawn ball 2 the night before and agonized whether to go on peg 1 or peg 16, both renowned predator pegs. Peg 16 had fished well the previous day while 1 had struggled. Peg 16 won but at the start of the day at 7am when rods can go in Peg 1 was quickly into fish! We found that we could not leave mackerel or chicken hearts in the water longer than 3-4 minutes or the tilapia would have left you with a bare hook or a head and skeleton!Four hours in and Gareth gets a run on the predator rod, keeping the rod well under the surface due to the floating weeds he manages to land a red tailed catfish of 30lb.

I should have had a fish but the “run” started and stopped, on retrieve I find a small mussel had closed itself over the point of the hook! That was our lot!

Next day it was back to Bangkok and Gareth went home eventually that night after a three hour delay due to thunderstorms in China and I had a day to recuperate before going back the following morning. An experience I am glad to have had.

Coming up Summer League fun at Boddington and the 3-dayer at Monkhall.

June 2024 Part 1 – Thank you rain!

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June has been a slow burner so far with Bowood on the horizon I only managed to get down to the canal at Horton for what was going to be a couple of hours, however…

Picked up the exchange tickets from Jackie at TK Tackle and headed off to Horton armed with the whips and half a pint of maggots and a bit of groundbait. The long grass revealed that nobody had been fishing there for some time! Set up a 4m whip and Chinese float and got the first cast in at 9:50 over the top of two small golf balls of groundbait and a pinch of maggots. Bait unusually for a canal was double maggot but I have found that this does produce results despite the accepted wisdom of small baits!

It was not long before the first fish, a roach, was swung in and over the next hour I had thirteen roach, four skimmers and a perch for between 1.5 and 2lb but then five boats came through, two in one direction and three in the other all in eight minutes and that killed it so my two hour session was ended after seventy minutes!

Bowood was now looming and I made up some new bags of wheat. My method is not to stew the wheat as the convention but I cover in boiling water and leave covered for 2-3 days before draining off the water and bagging the wheat. One bag for the fridge and the rest to the freezer. I was hoping for rain for a few days before the start of the season which may seem odd but experience has shown that the better fish tend to congregate in the shallows at the start of the season and if there is a good colour in the water they will happily feed.

My wish was delivered and three days of rain to various degrees left me hopeful, although the river through town was still running low and clear! Sunday 16th arrives and I set off at a leisurely pace as again I find the fish don’t wake up and feed until 9 or 10 o’clock! Three cars were already parked up and I suspected they may have had an early start. The long walk down was not as bad as the long walk back up the hill but I duly arrived at peg 1 but was unable to spot it at first due to the undergrowth but finally located it and got the gear in situ. As I hoped the bottom could not be seen (it is only 18-24 inches deep) with a good colour. A couple of minutes was spent pulling out rushes that were encroaching across the front of the platform so that fish could be netted and keepnet positioned safely.

Two lines of attack were identified – straight in front at 10m and 45 degrees to the left at 10m. Both were identical depth so the same rig could be used for both. Said rig was going to be an Ugly Duckling taking 1g of shot bulked six inches from a size 14 hook to 0.16mm Shogun line. Two balls of groundbait laced with a bit of wheat and 4-5 grains of corn went on the left line while the main line had three balls of similar! Throughout the session I was feeding a pinch of wheat every five minutes or so. First drop in was at 9:24 with corn on the hook, after twenty minutes of inactivity I succumbed and put a pair of maggots on only for two two inch fish to drop of, probably they were only holding the maggot. A half ounce rudd in the net finally sees me back on the corn and at 10:10 a proper bite sees a bream of 2-03 in the net followed by another of 2-00 five minutes later but then nothing.

At this point I made the decision to introduce more groundbait but this time to cup it in loose. This seemed to do the trick and when I placed the last bream of 3-10 (left hand pic) in the net at 1:10 I had secured seventeen bream for 52-04, my best weight at Bowood. The reason I stopped as the fish were still feeding was that I realised I might struggle lifting the net out. Anyway I managed and placing the net on top of my netbag I took a quick photo and then released the fish back into the water.

Wife’s birthday means no fishing today so Tuesday next chance but I think the colour may have gone and a different swim will be needed. End of the month sees Makins Pairs.

Meandering March 2024 Part 1

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March arrives and it is not until the 6th that I am able to get to Bowood arriving at peg 10 with a frost on the ground, air temperature of -1C and fog! I was ready to fish by 9 and continued to 12:30, the fog eventually lifted and the day turned very warm and sunny, however the water was highly coloured with a max of 3 inches clarity. Anyway the usual set up was in place and by 10 am I had one micro perch that dropped off! There were two others in the top field and another regular, Bob, turned up and went on 9 as he assumed the other two had gone on the other bank and had been planning on going to the top field. While chatting the float started going against the tow, a strike and a solid resistance followed by a goodly amount of elastic came out. Unshipping slowly I finally put the net under a 3-08 bream hooked in the pectoral! I had a small bream of 1-12, five roach, 3 skimmers/blades and 6 rudd for a final total of 6-10.

With the close of Bowood approaching – it keeps the same close season as the rivers- I went on the last Sunday, thinking it would be busy, how wrong I was- I had the lake to myself! Back on 10 with the usual approach I managed to get another bream of 3-06, a tench of 3-00, 25 rudd, 4 roach and 3 skimmers for a 7-12 total.

However there was a point when I quickly unshipped the pole as the pike float bobbed and started to go then stopped. On finally retrieving the bait I find there was a piece of flesh cut out with almost surgical precision less than 5mm from my top hook.

There have been no reports of crayfish in the 10 years I have been going to Bowood and I have never seen one there. Showing the picture to Jackie in TK Tackle she was bemused at first but came up with the possibility of it being a catfish. The lake was design and built by Capability Brown and many of his lakes at that time had carp and catfish introduced, it is quite feasible that some offspring of the original fish may still be in the water as 80% of it is not fished. A thought to ponder!

I decided to go on the Wednesday and leave the last day of the season alone! Bowood 10 was the peg again but the wind was blowing very hard and the water had got very coloured with a couple of heavy overnight downpours. I started at 9 but packed up at 11:30 having to fish the last hour or so just using the top two of the pole as the wind was extreme. Seven roach, twelve rudd and seven blades finished my season for 1-03.

To review the season – I have again succumbed to peg 10 during the autumn and winter due to it being the deepest area and with bait going in it does hold the fish (possibly!). Anyway the initial outlay for a Bowood ticket of £205 may appear expensive but given it is only 3 minutes from door to gate it is convenient plus the 55 visits I made means each outing cost me £3.93 so it is financially worthwhile.

I netted 555lb 5oz of visit making an average of just over 10lb a visit. That breaks down in the following way Pike 17 caught for 168-05, seven over 10lb (18-11,17-06,14-04, 14-04, 13-00, 1`2-04 and 11-13), Tench 13 caught for 51-15, the best 5-06 with 6 between 4 and 5lb and 6 between 3 and 4lb, there were 82 bream weighed the best being 5-00 with five between 4 and 5lb, 35 between 3 and 4lb, 32 from 2 to 3lb and 9 from 1 to 2lb for a total of 234lb. That leaves 101-01 of other fish. I made 25 fewer visits this season, partly down to spending more time on matches and Gareth dragging me to the canal or river!

Who knows what next season will bring, if it follows the usual Bowood cycle it will be a tench year with few bream!