We Were Up Early,

as we were going fishing,

to the lake we normally go to, the Mamak Fishing Park, it is off of Soi Nub Plan Wan, (spelt as it sounds), turn into the Soi from Sumkivitt, over the railway crossing and continue for a couple of miles, the road starts to go downhill, near the bottom of it the road the fishing park is in is on the right, follow that for a while and the fishing park is on the left,   

 we were with Nick and Maureen,

 Diana settled down for a long wait, both Nick and myself were under pressure to catch a fish to eat, Diana had not yet eaten breakfast,

 me, under pressure, sounds like the name of a song!

 well the fish were not biting so Diana ordered some food from the parks kitchen, chicken fried rice with an egg,

 then I caught the first fish, but it was just a tad to small to eat, so back it went,

 Ta-Taa totally underwhelmed,

 next to me a keeper, well an eater,

 as it happened the parks owner had called over to have a chat, so fish unhooked off he went to cook it,

 clouds in the distance looked ominous,

 then the fish arrived,

 fried with garlic and served with a hot sauce, you can not get fresher than that!

the owner then returned with his gear,

 and showed us how it was done, 

 as he hooked into a huge fish,

 which took him across a couple of fishing huts,

 concentrate, you do not want to lose him now!

 after about 20 minutes he decided to let one of his friends play the fish in, well it is tiring work all of this fishing malarkey,

 then in between us I noticed a disturbance on the surface of the water,

it was a huge shoal of fry, from a snakehead, as I mentioned the last time we were here these are the fish that are terrorizing some parts of the USA, the threat even made the Smithsonian, but one little known fact about these fish is that they make extremely good parents, under each shoal of fry one of the parents swims keeping a watchful eye on them chasing any predatory fish away to protect their young,

 but back to the big one, it was successfully landed,

 and what a size it was too,

 the fish was carefully unhooked,

 then a dash of antiseptic was applied where the fish had been hooked,

 a quick pose for the camera,

then back he went, the fish by the way was a pangasius catfish, though I am not sure whether it was a Pangasius (Pangasianodon) gigas or hypophthalmus, the fish is commercialy farmed on a huge scale out here in Thailand and Vietnam, as an aside it is the hypophthalmus that more than a few fish and chip shops in the UK have been fined for passing this fish off as cod, it tastes delicious, in fact I will be eating some tomorrow evening when we have fish and chips for our evening meal,

 looking down at the waters edge,

 I noticed this little damsel fly, there was a lot more wildlife on this side of the lake, but few of the damsel and dragon flies actually settled long enough for me to get a shot, also at this time it started raining again,

 we then decided to make a move to Nick and Maureen's where Nick then prepared a Panang curry, which was delicious,

 followed by cheese and biscuits and ice cream, before we start on the serious part of the evening the score was 3-0 to me, I caught a third fish but like the first it was too small to eat so back it went,

 if anyone fancies a day out this is the parks card,

and map of how to get there,

but back to the evening, Diana completed one street in record time, then another, a hotel on each property sealed all of our fates as we rapidly swelled Diana's coffers by all going bankrupt! many thanks to Nick and Maureen for once again looking after us so well, we said our goodbyes then made a move for home, we watched a couple of episodes of Pawn Stars that we had not seen before, then as midnight approached we were off to bed.