Steve Baldwin from Alaska is not your average fisherman, he is more used to flying his plane into areas of Alaska's vast wilderness, landing in tight clearings and then tracking on foot to fish untouched fishing spots. By career he flies military personnel including Navy SEALs around Afghanistan, now he embarks on his most exciting mission to date - fishing in Thailand!
Steve's first day at Bungsamran Lake was to target the standard Mekong catfish. A great introduction into fishing Thailand and totally exhausting even for a well built chap such as Steve; it can be said that Mekong catfish do not discriminate - they beat everyone up!
The second day and Steve was particularly after a big Mekong catfish and secondly a Siamese carp. With a change of tactic from the previous day and an additional fishing rod, the stool was set for just these requests. Usually it is a big Mekong over 100lb that is generally easier to catch and therefore a higher chance of catching than a Siamese carp of any size, especially in May. Still early in the morning however one of the first takes was from an immaculately conditioned Siamese carp of around 40lb, an incredible result and still plenty of time for the big Mekong. The remainder of the day quickly past away and apart from Mekong catfish to 50lb there were no real monster catfish caught. Steve mentioned he was happy to call it a day already with a good result, the guides however re-cast - after all there was another 15 minutes left on the clock. Would you believe it, a minute before the end of the session - bang - a big carp took off with the bait. Steve struck into the beast and played it skillfully, just as it was almost over the fish took a sneaky duck dive under the bungalow forcing Wee to enter the water and re-direct the fish back out into open water. The fight was back on and shortly afterwards Steve was the proud captor of an 85lb Siamese carp.
Steve's third and final day was spent with a visit to fishing at IT Lake Monsters, particularly interested in the arapaima. A consistent day's sport made up of six different species of fish and countless number of fish in total. The arapaima however evaded the baits, that makes two species Steve is keen to re-visit for.
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