ABU Garcia Dream trip 2009

We got the honor to guide ABU Garcia in conjunction with Sweden and Denmark's biggest fishing magazines "Fiske Journalen: and "Fisk og Fri" 2009 Dream Trip as the only world-wide operator to do it for a second time (2001 we guided them to the Andaman Island Dream trip).

The first 3 day of the trip we fished at Stuart Gillham"s fantastic fishing resort in Krabi for Arapaima, Giant Siamese Carp and more of the hard fighting species in Stuart's lake.

The Danish angler Thorbjorn Lager, who won his seat on the dream trip on a huge Pike caught on fly in Denmark hooked a monster Arapaima on the last day in Krabi, he professionally fought the huge fish for a long time and after some nerve rattling moments when the big fish jumped out of the net and nearly knocked out the angler we were able to take some photos of it. The weight was estimated by Stuart and his son Sean to be 140 kg, 10 kg more than the present IGFA record. You find a short note from this fish on this page: http://www.fiskejournalen.se/Sites/Fiske/Default____25814.aspx?DataID=88331

The Swedish fishing Guide Ulf who won his seat on this year's Dream trip on a 196 kg Halibut caught in Norway also caught a big Arapaima, his fish was caught at night and fought very hard and jumped three times before getting into the big cage used as landing net. The fish was estimated by Stuart to be around 100 kg.

After a stop at a local temple to pray for good fishing luck we arrived at Cheow Lan by midday on the 4th day of the trip. After checking in at our floating ranger station and eating a quick lunch we were off to a fantastic jungle fishing adventure. Giant Snakehead, Hampala Barb, Blue and Thai Mahseer were caught on fly and on spin by the anglers and also the Film team and the Journalist enjoyed the action far up in the rivers we fished.

Altogether 250 Mahseer were caught and released. During the fishing we saw wild Elephants, Asian Sun bear, Tapir, huge Wild boar, massive Monitor Lizards, Gibbons, Monkeys, Hornbill Birds and many different kinds of Birds of Prey. Morten one of the Danish winners of the Dream trip hooked a big Mahseer the last day that opened his extra strong dry fly hook. He also saw a massive Mahseer estimated to 12-15kg under some overhanging trees far up in one of the rivers, the fish was impossible to cast to and never came out from its hiding place.