I joined the Rawai Game Fishing club earlier in the week and took part in their sponsored Freshwater event yesterday. I am useless at freshwater fishing but thought it would be a good chance to meet some of the club members, many of whom live in Phuket and have various businesses including restaurants, bars, clubs and ....boats!
There were 40 competitors, many of whom were Swedish. There is a big Scandinavian presence in Phuket and the Swedes in particular love to go fishing. I was put into a two man team with a Swedish chap called Ulra and yep, he did look like a Viking...and he had Viking Hero's tattoed all over him! Ulra owns the Paradise Bar in Kata. (Haven't been to that bar...yet! Will rctify situation next week and give full report with photo's). Unfortunately, Ulra was even worse at fishing than me...and didn't even get a bite. In fact it was a pretty quiet day...I 'dropped' my first fish, landed the second (an 8kg carp) and then managed a 5kg pirhana right at the end. Only 3 teams weighed in two or more fish...so, at least we kept up.
Hero of the day was another Swedish angler, Mr Mikael Amundsson. Mikael also caught three fish (and his team partner blanked) but they were cracking fish. His first was a 16kg catfish, then a 14lkg carp and then a 5kg pirhana. His total was 73lb (dunno why the total catch weight reverted to lbs..but at least I understood that).
Mikael won 5,000 Baht (£100 for biggest fish) and 20,000 Baht (£400) for heaviest bag.
Today, we should be at sea. Jeff Whittard (The Bristol Fairy) and Steve Thorne (Andover) were on this trip. We were joining up with three other anglers...and two of them just happened to be Mikael and his son Felix who were fishing in the next swim to me in yesterday's comp. Mikael owns The Salaloy Seafoof Restaurant on Rawai Beach...so, a very useful contact and we will no doubt be visiting him in the next few days.
Well, it's a real shame we are not at sea...because of the windy conditions (yep, plenty of wind here too, chaps) so today we go to plan B which is getting Jeff scuba diving again...and into the sea tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment