Giant Stingray Thailand Maeklong River – 16 02 2013
Irek and his group of Polish fishing friends continued their Thailand stingray fishing holiday with a few days at the Maeklong River Thailand stingray fishing for Giant freshwater stingrays.
On their arrival at the Maeklong River the guys split into two groups with one group heading down river to the estuary section and fishing for smaller native Thailand fish species.
The other group headed to Area 51 looking for Giant Stingray Thailand and quickly had baits positioned at various intervals across a wide section of the tidal river.
With the tide pushing the water levels to their highest point it was not long before the Polish anglers had a take from a stingray.
On winding down into the unseen stingray the anglers watched as the heavy duty stingray fishing rod was pulled down towards the water as a stingray moved away with the bait.
As the angler began to apply more pressure the Giant Freshwater stingray clamped onto the riverbed creating an unmovable dead weight.
The stingray fishing boat was quickly moved to directly above the stingray and pressure was once again applied directly from above.
After several minutes of constant pressure from above the stingray finally was raised from the bottom and quickly pulled up into the middle layers of the river.
The Giant freshwater stingray kited around under the boat for several more minutes before it was finally netted by the guides.
The Giant freshwater stingray was estimated to weigh 45kg’s and was photographed before being released.
With a few more hours of stingray fishing left the angler re-positioned their baits and waited for further action to unfold.
Possibly an hour later one of the stingray fishing rods began nodding indicating that something had taken an interest in the large livebait below.
Slowly line began to trickle from the spool of the reel as another Giant freshwater stingray moved downstream.
On winding into the stingray on this occasion with the heavy duty stingray fishing rod it was clear the stingray was smaller.
After an uneventful battle lasting only a few minutes a small Giant freshwater stingray was carefully lifted into the stingray fishing boat.
The Giant freshwater stingray weighing only 20kg’s was in pristine condition and was quickly photographed and then released back into the river.
The anglers fished for a further two hours but with the exception of several aborted takes failed to catch any further Giant freshwater stingrays.
The other party fishing at the river mouth returned soon after having caught a selection of Thailand native species including several types of Sea Catfish species.
