Fish going into Chalong Fishing Park

What would a fishing lake be without fish?  More to the point what would a fishing park be without the fish that visitors want to catch? Only one thing for it, we had to have fish going into Chalong Fishing Park.

Well putting fish into a lake is going to be easy you would think.  The problem is we needed to have fish that were of a catchable size – not just a catchable size but of a size that makes the catch interesting with a fight. It was research time.  From experience of fishing the big fishing lakes around Thailand I knew the breed of fish I would need but finding them at the size needed for my lake was another issue.

Among the fish I needed were Amazon Red Tailed Catfish, Asian Red Tailed Catfish, Giant Mekong Catfish, Siamese Carp, Chao Phraya Catfish, Stripped Catfish, Pacu, Koi and Ghost Carp, African Walking Catfish. I commenced a search (via the Internet and previously accrued contacts) of Thailand from the Malaysian boarder up to Bangkok and west to the Myanmar boarder looking for the quality and size of fish I needed to make the lake a viable venture. The fish were sourced from just outside of Bangkok and shipped down over a couple of nights, in convoys of trucks. Their introduction to the lake was fairly successful, albeit there were a few losses.  Fortunately the suppliers had guaranteed those so more fish were sent to replace them.

As the lake matures and the waters settle we plan to introduce more fish.  The ones we have a ready to bite as you will see in the next blog.  They are also growing at good rate as far larger fish are being caught than have been put into the water.  All in all a good sign for future successful fishing.