Fishing on my local River

[Stumpy]

So every morning I have been taking a bicycle ride to my local river, its about 150 yards or so away from our house. I have been watching the locals fish and for the life of me can't figure out what they are trying catch. I have not seen anyone bring one in. Now I am an avid fisherman and have been since a kid and one thing about fishing is observing the fish behavior. So I see large ones feeding on the surface and yet the Thai guys throw out this 5lb weight and a glob of who knows what bait and fish the bottom.

Anyway curious what they use for bait. I rode my Wave over to my local "Bass Pro" shop to ask the pro's for some input.



The shop is well stocked and the staff was super friendly( place also sells Green Tea with milk for your shopping pleasure). When I asked them about the bait, they showed me some thick god awful shit bait. I guess these guys toss it on and wait for Catfish.

Anyway I am not a bait fisherman, I love to fish with plugs and crank baits. I am rigging up some of my gear to go see if I can hook up when they are feeding on the surface

Interestingly here in Thailand there is no pole use constraints, one guy had 11 rods going and the fish were not bothering him...

[Jack meoff]

Probably cat fish on bottom.
You must be well fit to cycle from house to river every day

[Stumpy]

You must be well fit to cycle from house to river every day

My heart rate must hit 100....for a few seconds..... Its a helluva trek.

[David48atTD]

Great stuff ... always like a Fisherman's tale.

So, what do they try and catch ... what bait do they use?

[naptownmike]

What river do you live near?

[Stumpy]

So, what do they try and catch ... what bait do they use?

A bit of talk and they are trying to catch Catfish. They use some ground up liver paste stuff

What river do you live near?

The River is the Wang. It's actually a descent river. Always moving. It rained a lot last night. Water level high and muddy.

[naptownmike]

Cool that goes into the Ping river near the wife's village. There are some beautiful vistas around the area with all the mountains and rivers. Are you in Tak? My wife family lives in Ban Tak we are trying to find something on the river there. It's much harder than I thought seems people only sell during crisis and there is only finite amount of nice places with a chanote.



I would love to wake up to this everyday. (although this was sundown Ha)
Good luck with the fishing.

[Maanaam]

When the swamp at the end of my soi floods, the boys come to fish. They don't use bait, just a shiny spinner lure which they cast out and very rapidly wind in, the lure skipping on the surface, repeatedly for 2 or 3 minutes, get impatient and move on. I watched them many times and saw one fish, about 12 cm long caught once. I was too far away to discern what type of fish. I also once saw a lure beng chased, but the fish was not caught. That encouraged the fisherman to stay an extra minute.
They seem very impatient here.
Obviously a predatory fish, I would think a strip bait would work. Just need a bit of patience.

[Dillinger]

Birds from the balcony

[Stumpy]

5555 Dill.

[Stumpy]

Are you in Tak

I live in Lampang. The river sweeps around the area heading to Tak.

Finding river front property is difficult and honestly I don't think I would want to live right in a river here for a host of reasons. Me being about 150 yards or so is perfect. One thing nice though living in close proximity to a river is the water table is not to deep and if you have a well it will never run dry.

This morning I walked down with my dog and she is a Chocolate lab and I had to fight her off from wanting to go do a big belly flop in the water. Fookin Labs and water. LOL. I can't keep the thing out of my lotus pot deals around my house. It's funny but wife doesn't see any humor in it.

I took some pics today I will post up soon. Odd set up some guy did with his poles.

[Shy Guava]

A lot of the sewage from Lampang town flows into the Wang upstream from you. You should have a good chance of getting a blind mullet or two.

[Stumpy]

555. Haven't seen any Baby Ruth's floating by.

Obviously fishing here is completely catch and release or give to a local. Even in US I was catch and release. Don't care for fish as food but enjoy catching them.

[Stumpy]

Looking towards the spill way





This person set up some shaft in the water with 3 pole holders. Would go out and cast them all, then paddle back to shore....LOL!. So let me get this straight. You set up the pole 50 yards away from you, then you get a hit, you run down, hop in the skiff, paddle out to set the hook?.....Brilliant.

This is why I Love Thailand. Its never a dull moment....

[cyrille]

Interestingly here in Thailand there is no pole use constraints

[fishlocker]

In my experience they tend to cast a wide net.

I'm not kidding. On the big river they don't do hook and line. In my experience the current is too strong to keep any bait on the hook much less on the bottom. Some 600lb cats. No, not the fishermen silly. I've seen some of the fishes here in the local market that we caught there. It would be cool to see some pics of this place. Fish or no fish.

[Stumpy]

@Fishlocker. Currents where I am are dead slow. It's easy fishing. Every one just tosses in a line and waits drinking iced Leo's. Not a bad way to clock off a few hours. I haven't seen any net fishing. All spinning rod and reels. These guys are pretty serious. I checked out their gear and line. It's descent gear and rigging. Like I said. One guy has 10 rods going. Not cheap for Thai standards.

I have heard there are some big fish in this section of the river. The water is fairly deep before the spillway. I want to fish the fast moving water after the spillway.

You mentioned pictures of the place? What pics?

[fishlocker]

Funny story but I picked up some chicken liver and shrimp at the market. They must have thought I was madd when I took it down to the river and cast it away. I think they thought I was just going to grill what I had.
As for costs I found lots of cheep gear at the local market but to get anything decent it was way over the top. One actual tackle shop was selling Rapala lures for twice what I pay here in Milwaukee. I use Penn, Daiwa and Shimano all different weight classes depending on the target.

I've seen trot lines where they use fish heads as bait. Some pretty stout stuff. And to think we actually swim in the river knowing there are some pretty big stingrays and who knows what else lurking about.

No big deal but I wouldn't pee in it for fear of something swimming up my pecker. I've a few nice picks of the river in the Lao section. What I need is a decent depth device to find the deeper holes where the lunkers live.

Good luck to you and remember a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work.

[fishlocker]

A lot of the sewage from Lampang town flows into the Wang upstream from you. You should have a good chance of getting a blind mullet or two.

Don't care too much for sewage flowing into the wang. A little saliva is ok.

[HuangLao]

In my experience they tend to cast a wide net.

I'm not kidding. On the big river they don't do hook and line. In my experience the current is too strong to keep any bait on the hook much less on the bottom. Some 600lb cats. No, not the fishermen silly. I've seen some of the fishes here in the local market that we caught there. It would be cool to see some pics of this place. Fish or no fish.

Sure. More often than not, the river net fisherman are of the making a living variety - finding their catches at the local markets. Knowing full well not to deplete the natural stock.

The casual hook and line guys are everywhere and anywhere, occasionally fishing for the family and to enjoy the solitude that the activity allows.

[Jack meoff]

A lot of the sewage from Lampang town flows into the Wang upstream from you. You should have a good chance of getting a blind mullet or two.

[Stumpy]

One actual tackle shop was selling Rapala lures for twice what I pay here in Milwaukee

Oh Yeah, In BKK at those 'Elite" fish ponds where you catch world class exotic fish which aren't even native to Thailand, they sell stuff 3 and 4 X more then what we can buy it for in the states. I brought over a lot of gear to fish for Snakeheads. I started unpacking much of it today. Getting ready to go play around.

Good luck to you and remember a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work.

Amen to that. Even if they don't bother you it is a GREAT day.

Got out the drone this after noon after the weather cleaned up and took a few shots from about 350 feet up of the river looking North to CM and south to Tak. Lots of places to fish.

[Klondyke]

A lot of the sewage from Lampang town flows into the Wang upstream from you. You should have a good chance of getting a blind mullet or two.

Interestingly, the river cleans itself on its slow way downstream. In the sommer months the river is somewhere transparent almost 1 m. I have an explanation for that: once the river flow gets reduced a green vegetation will spread up in the shallow river bed. Hence, this vegetation and the sand bed - together with certain bacterias - will clean the water.

This effect has been increasingly used nowadays instead of the industrial equipment for alternative waste water treatment where the waste water seeps slowly through a vegetation slope.

[misskit]

the river looking North to CM

For some reason I had imagined you east of Chiang Mai, way up on the mountains of Lampang. Can see now that you are a flat lander. Are you near Lampoon?

[Troy]

I returned to the sticks a couple of days ago and decided to bring my fishing gear as well. Unfortunately, a lot of it is still sat on the dining room table as the wife did the packing. I have a rod, a couple of reels and some waggler floats. I see the wife packed her frog lures as well but the box with hooks, weights, swivels, sleeving etc is still waiting to be packed.

No big rivers around my way; just some streams and a reservoir, although that's about 25km away. I am hoping to catch something edible around the 1Kg mark from the streams. We can try for something a little bigger in the reservoir but it's much more an excuse for a day out by the water with a picnic and surprise grill.

I will be doing a bit of float fishing and let the wife try out some frog lures. If I'm feeling lucky, I might do some bottom fishing with a hair rig and sweetcorn.