mekong catfish

[chiangmaimav]

Yesterday I went fishing at a place called Bo Sang Fishing camp. I caught a 30 kg. mekong catfish, which is 66 pounds, and a couple of 20 pound scrap catfish, using a basket filled with bread as bait. This is chumming in USA, and illegal, but it is the way everyone fishes for catfish here as mekong catfish are not carnivorous and will not take lures or live bait. This fish put up a great fight and wore me out, and though it was a decent size catfish over 100 pounds have been caught here in Thailand, and the world's record catfish was caught about 10 miles from my home.

[crashdive123]

Sounds like time for a fish fry!

[nell67]

Mmmm,catfish!!!!!!Yummy

[crashdive123]

I would imagine that with catfish that size, they don't do a whole lot of CATFISH NOODLING

[laughing beetle]

Heh! You would end up using your whole body instead of just your arm.

[chiangmaimav]

Unfortunately at thsi lake mekong catfish are protected and it is only catch and release. Too bad, since 1 fish would feed a whole village. One bad thing about fishing in Thailand, it is done almost strictly for survival not sport. So people use fish traps , weighted nets and even dynamite to catch fish. For this reason many species of fish here are endangered and now there are strict laws to protect fish, but even so these old practices are common. The worst and stupidest fishing method I have heard of is people actually poisoning the fish.
This makes no sense, but it has been done and I know a man whose wife died from eating poisoned fish.

[Gray Wolf]

That whole area (Golden Triangle) has the biggest catfish I have ever seen!

[Ole WV Coot]

We usually don't weigh them around here from the Ohio or Big Sandy. We do measure them the average is about two feet (we measure from eye to eye.)

[crashdive123]

We usually don't weigh them around here from the Ohio or Big Sandy. We do measure them the average is about two feet (we measure from eye to eye.)

Sounds about right.

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[Styric]

Sounds about right.

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WOW! That would make for some scary swimming. I wonder what they taste like that big. I can't imagine they taste very good. Does anyone know how old a catfish is at that size?

[hoosierarcher]

Sah Wah Ti Krup Chaingmaimav.
Even catch and release fishing is good practice for fishing when it matters most. We have Asian Grass carp here in the MidWest of America now and we bowfish for them and we can now arrow 60# fish and have to fight them for half an hour and they cook up deliciously. They jump and sail through air and guys are shooting them "on the wing" now as an added challenge. They jump into boats too.

[swampmouse]

I thought 65 pound flathead was large. I am amazed.

[Rick]

I was scuba diving off one of the locks on the Ohio and came across a cat fish resting inside a rusted old car. He had to be in the 200 lb. range. I would have speared him but he kept rolling up the window.

[Ken]

I was scuba diving off one of the locks on the Ohio and came across a cat fish resting inside a rusted old car. He had to be in the 200 lb. range. I would have speared him but he kept rolling up the window.

Sounds like a fish story to me.........

[hoosierarcher]

I live on the Wabash River and we have blue and flathead catfish in the 100 amd up range. I have caught flatheads over 100 pounds using live sunfish as bait. they are also the target of the local trotliners. I haven't done that(trotline) in years but I am going to do it this year.