Bernd Ziesche | Wednesday, 19 February 2020
Right now I am fly fishing Thailand searching some new species of fish. Some of those I yet never fished for.
Aiming to catch a new species of fish is always great. It's about starting with zero knowledge and then trying to understand the details of the fish's behaviour before matching the best possible strategy to catch the fish. In my experience the more species of fish I learnt how to fish for them, the quicker I got into the details of other new species of fish. In the end nearly all fish are using their senses, only one has to figure out how (in which order and percentage) they use them in each situation.
Thailand offers some really nice waters for fly fishing, rivers and ponds. Fly fishing the ponds is quite common in Thailand. It reminds me to fishing all the fine stillwaters in the UK. Many fly fishermen love to go for this style of fishing. So do I!
Yet I have been catching Giant Pangasius (catfish), Tilapia (perch), Silver carp, Barramundi and was hooked to a serious sized Pacu. That's 5 new species of fish for me - brilliant!
Usually I start with checking for some key figures about my strategy:
- Size, shape and color of my fly.
- Movement of my fly itself (jigging or not jigging, moving straight or breaking off sideways, breathing or not breathing/about palmering for example, popper action/no popper action).
- Fly depth in combination with the fly line.
- Most important: the how to retrieve each fly.
Of course I want to understand how the fish uses his senses for eating. Usually when I have figured this out, I have a proper strategy how to catch them in no time!
I have to admit though, catching Giant Pangasius and Silver carp is everything, but not simple! Luckily I brought some flies I used for catching mullet back home tied on strong carp hooks. Those did help me to catch a silver carp. It's mainly green marabou tied on the shank.
Catching the Giant Pangasius was mainly about getting the fish curious about what drops right in front of his nose. Seems quite similiar to how I fish for carp back home. Only the Pangasius is a hell of a strong fight!
Fishing for Barramundi so far is my favorite here. Fantastic fish. Barramundi have shrimps on their list in many places. Indeed I tried a lot of flies, big ones and small ones, popper flies, streamers, but my shrimp patterns clearly worked best! The takes were strong when offering a shrimp fly in the right movement!
Next weekend I hopefully can join a local expert on fly fishng a big river for Barramundi. Really looking forward to this!
I hope you are having some fine riddles about new fish coming up soon, too!?
Great week to all of you!
All my best
Some pictures from the last days...
