In this season we have got a new rod in our collection of fly rods. The "Seven’ Eight" fly rod from CL Fly Denmark. This is a 7.8 ft long fly rod which casts with a 18 grams line. It is a highly accurate light rod which is pleasure to fish with and feels like a 6 weight. The fly rod has a fast progressive action and it is easy to make nice tight loops with a good line speed. This is just what we need, when we fly fish for Mahseer in our jungle rivers. Which many times require casting techniques such as roll casting or single-hand-spey-casting.
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The camping trip start with pick-up at 7 am in Ao Nang in Krabi. After a two and a half hour drive arrived, Jed at the pier on Cheow Lan Lake. We loaded the longtail boat up and headed up the lake. I asked Jed if he was ready for a long hike and the answer was yes. My plan was to go up in one of the Jungle Rivers that nobody has been far up and fish before.
After we had sailed a while, we come to a place, where you have a view over the low jungle covered hills. You could see that the jungle had got some rain. All the steam because of the sun gave the mountains a foggy look, but it was not long before the sun has burnt the last of the fog away. So it will be very hot and we had a long hike before evening and the low water levels in the lake, would not make our hike shorter.
Mid December came Rhine from South Africa over for 5 day jungle fishing trip. In Cheow Lan lake and the jungle rivers of Khao sok. Rhine grew up within walking distance of good fishing for Bass and Tilapia, and the fishing trips for Tiger Fish. With crocodiles on the riverbanks and hippos in the mud, sounded like some very exciting angling experiences.
The fishing trip start with a pick up from Khao Lak at 7 am. We arrived at base camp at 11 am; we got our Bungalows and had plenty of time until the evening fishing would start. So we used the time on a good lunch and preparing of the fishing gear. The first evening we fished with top water lures in a bay, where we had found an area with shallow water. With Rhine’s fishing experience, it did not take long before, he caught the first of 3 Giant Snakehead, up to 4 pounds.
But one of the bigger rivers, where the water comes from a westerly direction, runs with fine clear water for fly fishing. After a short stop in our jungle base camp for lunch and to make final equipment checks we arrive at the river around 12 am.
We have a hike through the jungle of about one and half hours before we can start to fish. It was easy to see Finnur was an experienced fly fisherman, it is always a pleasure to see a fly fisherman who can manage the fly line, it took only a short time before he had got used to the jungle surroundings and in contact with his first Mahseer, when we arrived at the riverbank camp, that first afternoon we had caught and released a handful of Mahseer in the 3 lbs. size.
The two weeks before their arrival had been stormy, with very heavy rain. This made it impossible to fish in the ocean around Khao Lak. So we were forced to start with the Jungle fishing and hope that the water was not too colored. So it was with a certain excitement when the longtail boat took off at the Cheow lan pier and headed for our jungle camp.
Luckily the water in Cheow Lan lake, was not so colored that it could not be fished. Already the first afternoon we had a Giant Snakehead on the right side of 3kg in the boat. Generally the weather was on our side, with the exception of a single afternoon, with some strong winds and little rain here and there. we had a good number of strikes, from some pretty good sized fish. Released some Giant Snakehead in the 3-4 kg scale and Hampala Barb up to 2 kg in the lake.