Okay so in the past I have told people not to bother fishing in Thailand because the last couple of trips I have done over there have been less than successful! I basically figured the place must be fished out with the amount of fishing boats constantly netting every inch of water.
So I was very sceptical when a couple of weeks back while on Koh Phi Phi just of Phuket I found myself with a day to kill and decided to go charter fishing. I thought it would be good just to get out on the water for a day and enjoy the experience so I hired a longtail fishing boat for half a day. It only cost me $60 and I had the whole boat to myself for about 5 hours fishing so I couldn’t complain about the cost!!
I met my skipper down at the water and had a bit of a laugh when I saw the boat and the gear we were running but thought what the hell should be An adventure!



Old mate cranked up the donk and we putted out through the beautiful phi phi islands. We pulled up at a spot 30 mins later and my scepticism didn’t get any better as two big trawlers dragged a huge net within 50m of us.
The skipper rigged up a bait rod and jigged up a couple of cute little reef fish for live bait that he chucked in a tank. He rigged up a couple of big overhead rods both of which had seen better days. One had all the eyes rewired back on and the tip had been snapped and glued back on a couple of times by the looks of it! The reels weren’t much better with plenty of corrosion on them and they looked they had a hard life! We rigged one livey up out the back with a float on and set the other one up free swimming. With the rods in the rod holders I kicked back up the front taking in the scenery while the skipper continued to jig up little reefies which he threw in his keeper box.

After an hour or so of no activity the rod with the free swimmer suddenly bent over in the rod holder and started peeling drag! The nylon line had wrapped around the canopy a couple of times so I jumped up and cleared it. I picked up the rod and watched line get stripped from the reel at an alarming rate. The skipper started barking instructions to me in Thai and I had no idea what he was saying so I took it as ”let it run” which I did!
The fish pulled off an amazing amount of line before I was actually able slow it and gain some line back. Every time I would make a little gain the fish would go off on another powerful run and take back everything I had fought for. The design of the boat made it really tricky to play the fish as I had a canopy in front and behind me and the shaft of the motor stuck out about 5m behind the boat! After about 20 mins of hard slog my back was making me p..s and when the skipper pulled a harness from somewhere I could have kissed him! We still weren’t sure what it was at this stage as the fish had dived deep and was still doing some powerful laps around the boat. I had to take it fairly gentle on the fish because the nylon line had seen better days and the drag on the real was fairly sticky so I didn’t want to snap it off. 40 minutes after hooking the fish we finally saw some colour and the skipper started yelling “Kobea Kobea big Kobea 25 kilo at leest!!” I got pretty excited after that too cause I had never caught a cobia and it was right up there on my wish list. The big cobia had amazing stamina and would not give up. Every time I got it near the boat it would go another long slow run that would take back all the line I had struggled to regain. I finally got it into gaffing range but the skipper couldn’t get a clear shot and missed about 3 times. Every time I had my heart in my mouth and the fish would take off once again! The skipper then tried something I hadn’t seen before and made a lasso with some rope and tried to feed it down the line to snare the fish! Not surprisingly it didn’t work! By this stage I felt sure I was going to lose this fish right at the boat after battling it for the last hour. Eventually old mate got the Gaff shot right and we both had to struggle to drag it over the edge into the longboat where it started thrashing around scattering stuff everywhere! I taught old mate how to give me a high five then I had to sit down as I was totally shattered! I measured the fish up and it came in at 125cm.

We didn’t have any scales but the skipper reckoned it was about 25 kilo. He also said “very lucky not catch cobia for long time” so I take it he was also pretty wrapt! I tod him “ not luck just good captain” and pointed to him which put a smile on his face.
I only had my phone on which to take photos with unfortunately and I had to explain to the captain how to use an I phone camera so the pics didn’t turn out the best but I reckon he did a pretty good job considering!

We fished for a while longer after that but didn’t see any more action so we putted back to the island. On the ad for the charter it said you could keep any fish caught or sell them to the fish markets but as I was staying in a hotel so I decided to give the fish to the captain as a tip and im sure he would have made good use of it.
So in the end I guess it goes to show you gotta be in it to win it and there must still be some decent fish over there even if it does cop a heap of pressure. It was a good start to 2012 and my next species on the list of want to catch has got to be a saily.
Cheers all ill se ya on the water!

Nice Cobia lincoln, they pull like a train!!

good stuff!

Great post

that cobia most likely would been 3 months wages for the captain at the fish market , a win for you both

Nice Cobia and top post mate. I love catching Cobia, they are good fun and taste so good to.

_________________

Great post Lincoln.

great cobia man

_________________

Gota love the cobia! greta fighter great eating!
Cheers.

Just lookn at the pic of the skipa,have a go at the mad max engine!!!!!
Cheers.

That's a great Cobe Lincoln!!

what a bonus on yr hols too

_________________

Sweet fish mate. And your right... sometimes you just never know. Just one more cast, just one more cast

Then just one more cast,,,top post and a very nice fish

cheers
jeff

_________________

Wikkid fish mate.

Cracking Cobia mate, very fat.
I'll have to get over there one day, those islands look orsume.

_________________

Cheers mate i definately reccomend Phi Phi lovely spot! it was pretty busy while we were there but usually its pretty chilled with no traffic on the whole island and some lovely beaches. Apparently the diving over there is pretty spectacular as well if your into Scuba.



Yeh mate they are a serious machine! the noise they put out is pretty unreal too the skipper must be deaf as with that thing banging away next to his head all day!



Cheers! Yeh i kinda wish i had a chance to taste some everyone reckons they are top chewing. Definately up there as one of the hardest fighting species ive caught and probably the best stamina out of nearly everything!



Thanks mate. yeh he had a pretty big grin on his face i reckon he either fed his family for a couple of months or made some good coin off it at the markets!

cheers