Mekong catfish

Name: Mekong catfish Species: Pangasianodon gigas Thai name: Pla buk Max length in excess: 3m Max weight: 300kg IGFA record: 84kg (185lb 2oz), caught here at Gillhams Fishing Resort. Stocked to: 120kg (260lbs) Diet: Plankton, plants, shrimp, sticky rice, boilies, cereal, maize and fish.

Gillhams Fishing Resort in Krabi are the holders of the IGFA world record with a fish caught by Rob Maylin on the 28th May 2008, weighing 84kg (185lb 2oz.)

To fish for our Mekongs we recommend boilies, especially pop-ups (strawberry and creams are best) or maize fished in conjunction with a method feeder. It is well worth the effort to buy some coconut milk, condensed milk and dessicated coconut mixed with a cream or fruit flavour and our groundbait to make a sweet, sticky method mix. Fish a pop-up or maize with a large ball of sticky rice moulded on the hooklink tight to the bait. Once again find your spot and keep topping up the bait, as these are shoal fish with huge appetites. The Mekong catfish is one of the hardest fighting fish in freshwater, and the more you pull, the more they pull back. At all times, as with all fishing here, keep checking your drag settings, as one mistake and the result is a lost fish. Our Mekongs range from 60lbs to 260lbs, and once hooked expect a fight of at least 45 minutes! Also our Mekongs were bought up on a diet of fish, which is unheard of as a bait in most fisheries, but be assured 50% of our Mekongs fall to small or half sea fish deadbaits. We even had one caught in December 2007 on a tilapia livebait, and this is one of the only Mekong we, or our fish suppliers, have ever heard of to fall to live bait. In the wild the Mekong catfish is regarded as a plankton feeder, and our lake has an obscene amount of shrimp. We can net 2kg inside five minutes at night, so the Mekongs, as with all our fish, get preoccupied on this nutritional food source, making them hard to catch, but lots of bait in a concentrated area will switch them on to your bait. The Mekong is one of the hardiest species in Thailand, but take note of our guide's advice. As with all our catfish species our guides will inject them before photos and release to protect them from bacteria, stress and disease.

General facts on the Mekong catfish:

Mekong giant catfish are the world's largest scaleless freshwater fish. They have very low set eyes and are silvery dark grey. They are toothless herbivores who live off the plants and algae in the river. Juveniles wear the characteristic catfish "whiskers," called barbules, but these features shrink as they age. Highly migratory Mekong catfish require large stretches of river for their seasonal journeys and specific environmental conditions in their spawning and breeding areas. They are thought to rear primarily in Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake and migrate hundreds of miles north to spawning grounds in Thailand; they will not spawn in stillwater. They are bred artificially on fish farms such as our friend Mr Toe's, who is involved with the restocking programme for the Mekong river. We only buy our Mekongs from a reputable source such as Mr Toe, and unlike some commercial fisheries none of our fish of any species have been taken from the wild. Once plentiful throughout the Mekong basin, population numbers have dropped by some 95 percent over the past century, and this critically endangered fish now teeters on the brink of extinction. Overfishing is the primary culprit in the giant catfish's decline, but damming of Mekong tributaries, destruction of spawning and breeding grounds, and siltation have taken a huge toll. Some experts think there may only be a few hundred adults left in the wild today, and international efforts are underway to save the species. It is now illegal in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia to harvest Mekong catfish. On 9 June, Thailand marked King Bhumibol Adulyadej's 60th year on the throne. A crowd of over half a million people gathered in the nation's capital, Bangkok; prisoners were released, and fishermen in the north of the country declared they would no longer catch the Mekong giant catfish. Instead, they will hand over their nets to the government, in return for $500 per net. In a further bid to safeguard the species, the Thai Department of Fisheries has released approximately 10,000 captive-bred individuals into the Mekong river since 2000. However, enforcement of fishing restrictions in many isolated villages along the Mekong is nearly impossible, and illicit and bycatch takings continue along with sales to commercial fisheries. The largest catch recorded in Thailand since record-keeping began was a female measuring 2.7m in length and weighing 293kg (646lb). This specimen, caught in 2005, is widely recognized as the largest freshwater fish ever caught. Thai Department of Fisheries officials stripped the fish of its eggs as part of a breeding programme, intending then to release it, but the fish died in captivity and was sold as food to local villagers.