Newsletter August 2017

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

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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 exclusive Thailand fishing paradise for the month of August. 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.

The month of August continued where July left off with decent catch results pretty much all round. Although we are now well into what is known as the ‘rainy season’ and because April to October includes the English summer, it is officially recognised as the ‘low season’ here. But I actually think that these months have far greater potential for good fishing than the favoured high season months starting from November onwards. Obviously, a degree of reduced traffic on the lake in the low season certainly contributes to increased catches but even so, we still had the odd slow day here and there when the conditions weren’t ideal. However, with hardly a blank in sight for all those that ventured here this month, the majority seemed to leave Jurassic Mountain with a smile of satisfaction on their faces.

WHY THAILAND?
I’ve often been asked why did I choose Thailand to enjoy my retirement instead of the UK and apart from the obvious answer being that my once Great Britain is not so ‘Great’ anymore for reasons that are far too many and far too political for me to go into on here, the other big plus for Thailand was of course the all year round weather that this fabulous country enjoys. The weather this month in the Thailand rainy season was what can be compared to a particularly hot English Summer with a mix of blue skies, a few cloudy days and the occasional rainstorm thrown in which, to be honest are very welcome because with the temperature constantly in the thirties they tend to cool everything down when they arrive. A typical rainstorm may last for an hour or two and will then clear up to blue skies and sunshine again but it certainly knows how to chuck it down when it does arrive. Torrential can be somewhat of an understatement but all in all, August had really beautiful weather and weather that I can guarantee was far better than what the UK’s unpredictable weather dished up. In fact, many of our visitors have expressed their preference to fishing in Thailand during the low season rather than the high and it may well be worth something for you to consider in the future.

Other reasons for my decision to ‘up sticks’ to The Land of Smiles included the abundance of beautiful beaches and golf courses that are available within minutes of here, the fantastic food on offer and of course Jurassic Mountain resort itself. Oh, and not forgetting my lovely girlfriend Neti and my little Alfie! Just for the record for those who don’t know who Alfie is and may wonder if I’ve started a Thai family at my grand old age, Alfie’s my Jurassic mascot shih-tzu!

Jurassic Mountain takes great pride in the quality of the Thai cuisine that’s on offer in the restaurant with tradional Thai food, Great British Food, European Food, Indian Food and more recently some of the fisheries inhabitants which of course include arapaima. If you’ve never tried it before, you don’t know what you’re missing! We can prepare it poached, baked, in a Thai or an Indian sauce or simply as traditional fish and chips! Whatever the choice, you’ll find it delicious! We’ve also added a little something to the menu called ‘the arapaima challenge.’ If you can’t finish the meal, you simply just pay for it and if you do happen to finish it, it’s free of charge. It’s as simple as that but it might just be a good idea to read the small print first…. The portion size is eighty bloody kilos!

ANOTHER BIRTHDAY TICKED OFF With August being the month of my birth, it was safe to say that my birthday party held down in one of Cha-am’s hotspots went off with a resounding bang. That’s 67 of them under my belt and hopefully I’ve got a good few years of retirement left in me yet. Although I don’t think for one minute that I’ll be getting that telegram from the Queen, I’ll certainly be giving it my best shot!

ASIA TRAVELS This month I continued with my quest of visiting as much of Asia as possible before my day of reckoning comes and by using Jurassic Mountain as my base, I managed to tick Singapore, Hong Kong and the Chinese version of Vegas which is Macau off my list. I’ve decided not to include North Korea as one of the places to visit because the way things are going, I really don’t think it’s gonna be there for much longer!

BEFORE AND AFTER …. I thought you might like to see how far the resort has progressed since the start of the development here. This photograph was taken at the very beginning of the build …..

THE JURASSIC MOUNTAIN ACCOMMODATION. A lot of fishermen’s wives and girlfriends have the misguided perception that angler’s accommodation on a fishing park must be something that’s comparable with muddy boots, smelly damp clothing, boxes of maggots and anything else that a non angling wife can think of that would deter her from joining her man here at Jurassic Mountain. Take a look at the following photo ladies, it’s probably the finest anglers accommodation on the planet…

Apart from our lovely female staff contingent, we also have many other species of birds around Jurassic Mountain including the much loved weaver bird who builds the most elaborate of nests that sway in the wind like woven pieces of art. Did you know that it’s the male weaver bird who does all the donkey work of the nest building? This poor little sod grafts all day long for about a week to build the potential Mrs Weaver the nest of her dreams. He then hangs about by the entrance whistling his little head off hoping that she’ll come along and choose his house to live in so that he can get his little leg over in the bargain. Sounds rather familiar that don’t it?

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 August. 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 newsletter photograph is of Miles Malone, a military doctor and veterinary surgeon who hails from Suffolk in the UK. Miles studied at the Sandhurst Royal Military academy and is obviously well used to administering anaesthetic to all the unfortunates who require it but he almost needed a dose of the stuff himself when he saw the size of the snakehead that had taken his bait. Weighing in at eight kilos which is seventeen pounds in old money, this was one of the largest snakeheads to show it’s face here and when you consider that the I.G.F.A.world record for the giant snakehead is just twenty six pounds and we hardly see a snakehead landed here from one month to the other, this specimen is well worthy of us awarding the captor with our angler of the month title. Well done Miles, now you can add AOTM to all the other letters that follow your name!

Here’s a great story for you. You may remember me writing about Perry Noakes in the May newsletter. Perry was our angler of the month for May and his sole ambition in his fishing life was to land a triple figure carp which had always managed to elude him. It was during May that he actually hooked into a massive carp that would have smashed the 100 lb mark only to lose it after being asked by management to get it to the net asap due to not wanting the fish stressed to exhaustion due to very high water temperatures during that week. Perry put the fish first and respectively obliged, but then sadly the hook pulled, but even Perry being the gentlemen he is rather than moan about it conceded to the managements greater experience in these matters, and as any good angler should say he gracefully said “I would rather see a fighting fit fish released back into the lake than an exhausted one.” Apart from the commiserations that were showered upon him, my parting shot to Perry in the May newsletter was ‘Unlucky mate, keep at it because you’ll get there in the end and if you stick to Jurassic Mountain as your chosen venue…… I can guarantee it.’

Well, it turned out that my advice was rather prophetic because Perry returned once again in his quest to land the magical 100 pound plus carp and after landing a few around the 50-60 mark, the fishing gods smiled down upon him in a big, big way because the line screamed off of Perry’s reel once more and he was into the fight of his life again with another monster Siamese carp. This time there was to be no unhappy ending because after a tussle that lasted for well over an hour, Perry finally got his arms around his best ever carp that was nearer the 200 lb mark than the ton proving that dreams do actually become reality for those who persevere long enough here at Jurassic Mountain. Well done Perry and fully deserved it was too! Footnote:- Perry is one of the contestants for the Jurassic carp challenge that’s set to kick off here next July. He couldn’t do it again …… could he?

Gordon, (above) originally from south east London but who now somehow finds himself across the Thames in Essex, arrived here for his third visit in four years with wife Margaret and his catch results this year included this stunning pacu that gobbled up Gordon’s live bait suspended one metre under a float and which led him a right merry dance before succumbing to the net.

And just as the sun was beginning to sink behind the mountain range to the west, Gordon cracked into this arapaima right at the last knockings. Whilst the other anglers were knocking back a few well earned jugs of ice cold Chang in The Anglers Rest, Gordon was engaged in a battle that lasted all of ninety minutes and took him well into the darkness. Rest assured, that first ice cold beer when he eventually arrived in the bar didn’t touch the sides and went down an absolute treat.

Pat spent many happy days here with his son Owen and he’s seen above posing with just one of the many fish that they landed between them during their visit.

Tony Love has served three stints in Helmand province in Afghanistan. Tony has proved to be quite a thorn in the side of the Taliban because he’s an ace sniper with no less than thirty three confirmed kills to his name. His claim to fame apart from landing that nice redtail he’s holding is a confirmed kill on a moving target at 1400 metres …… twice! Seems like there’s nowhere to hide once Tony gets you in his sights……. Just ask that redtail!

The Tank is the name that we’ve given to one of our larger arapaimas and you’ll normally see her showing off and breaking the surface just outside the clubhouse. She’s been quite an elusive specimen and up until now she’d only been landed twice in the last fourteen months. It was actually my son Jimmy who had the pleasure of making The Tank’s acquaintance early last year during his yearly pilgrimage to see how his old dad’s doing and it was then a good few months later before she was to be seen nestling safely in the arapaima cradle once again.

Estimated to be well in excess of 300 pounds and more than likely now a darn sight heavier, she was finally ensnared again this month by Thomas from Huddersfield who landed six decent fish on his first day here but his second day proved to be a particularly slow day because he only managed to land one fish, and that fish was…..The Tank! That’s all it takes folks, just one fish at Jurassic Mountain to make your dreams come true and come true they certainly did for the newly named ‘Thomas the Tank engine’ on a day that he’ll never ever forget!

Glenn from the emerald isle spent four days on the lake and it was with a ‘top o’ the morning’ smile that Glenn returned home with a substantial catch total under his belt. The luck of the Irish? I’m sure Glenn will tell you that luck had nothing whatsoever to do with it!

Neil, our Jurassic Mountain martial arts expert owns one of the villas here and it’s not unusual to see him reeling in double figures of fish on a regular basis. This trip saw Neil’s best tally of 24 in total for a single day session and not only that, you can more or less rely on Neil to bank a triple figure carp or two during the day and the above photo shows that he did just that!

Christian and his son Ron (above) arrived from Germany and it was Christian who got in first when he landed this fine triple figure Siamese carp. However, young Ron wasn’t to be outdone and it wasn’t long before he had one in the net that put his dad’s triple figure carp firmly in the shade…….

The arrival this month of that world famous Midlands tackle magnate Terry Eustace combined with the fact that Martin Bowler will be back here before we know it confirmed once again that Jurassic Mountain is still the number one venue for ‘I’m a celebrity, get me INTO there.’ If further confirmation is required, we also have the imminent arrival of Claudia Darga who’s angling exploits seem to be followed by half the population of Germany! Claudia Darga’s hosted trip at Jurassic Mountain next month has been long awaited and I’ll give you a full rundown on how it all pans out in September’s edition of our newsletter.

Before I close, I’d like to tell you a little story that I’ve actually told a couple of years ago in my very first newsletter. Hopefully you haven’t read it before.

It was when I first arrived in Bangkok a good few years back and this is what happened ….. There I was sitting in Sukhumvit’s upmarket Soi 11 perched on a bar stool with a nice cold beer and my nose in the the Bangkok Post when I heard those immortal words, “Hello handsome man”. I looked up and I nearly fell off my stool as my eyes settled upon a gorgeous Thai goddess who was obviously the runaway winner of that years Miss Thailand competition and as there were only three other people in the bar which were all female apart from one which looked female but definitely wasn’t, I had no reason to doubt that this smiling young beauty wasn’t referring to anybody else but yours truly.

Her first objective was easily achieved when I offered to buy her a drink in return for the compliment. Then came the standard ‘ What your name ? Where you from ? How long you stay Bangkok ?’ routine and then she asked ‘ How old you handsome man ?’ ‘ How old do you think I am ?’ I replied breathing in, smoothing my barnet, removing my glasses and flashing my very expensive set of pearly white implants at her. Her gorgeous Thai eyes stared at me very intently indeed and after looking me up and down very carefully for what seemed like ages, she slowly put her bottle of beer down on the table, rested her slender chin into her cupped little hand and with an angelic expression that could melt a thousand hearts she fluttered her one inch long eyelashes at me and said …..’Forty ?’ Well, that did it for me! As I was the wrong side of sixty four and was soon to be joining the rest of the old cronies in drawing my old age pension, you can imagine what a buzz that was coming from Miss Thailand but just in case there was the extremely unlikely and very remote possibility that she was exaggerating and was only trying to impress me, I decided, just in case, to take it a step further and I laid her a little challenge. ‘ That was very very close princess but not quite right so I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you one more guess and if you guess correctly I’ll give you a 1000 baht but if you guess wrong, you’ll just have to settle for the beer that I’ve bought you.’

The lure of that crisp 1000 baht note was obviously too much for Miss Thailand to turn down. Quick as a flash the eyelashes stopped fluttering, her beautiful Thai eyes narrowed and now bore the look of a demented Kamikaze pilot and without a moment’s hesitation she said…. ‘ Sixty three?’ Well that burst my bubble and I crashed back to earth with a resounding thud! I’d aged twenty three years in five seconds flat and almost lost a 1000 baht in the bloody process……TAXI !

Well that’s it for this month readers, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter and I’ll look forward to seeing you all on here again next month. Until that time, don’t forget my favourite quote which is that we should live each day as if heaven is here on earth. Actually, there’s no ‘IF’ about it……heaven IS here on earth. It’s right here in Thailand and I’ve found it! You’ll find it too when you venture through the pearly gates of Jurassic Mountain resort and fishing park!
I sincerely hope that this newsletter tempts you to sample the delights that Jurassic Mountain has to offer and hopefully we’ll have the pleasure of your company in the future where you will have the opportunity to realise your dreams and maybe just 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. Paradise? Jurassic Mountain exemplifies the very word so why not come and join me and see for yourself. It’s very easy to get here ….. but a damn sight harder to leave!

TIGHT LINES ALL, SEE YOU ON HERE NEXT MONTH.