FISH BY THE TRUCK LOAD

The Rainy season has arrived in full force making the temporary road we have built quite slick .Lots of mud and spinning tires. It seems like EFT motor cross some days.

Even with unfavorable conditions we have managed to receive deliveries of 18 truck loads of fish .The first stock ponds are seriously starting to fill up.

Other deliveries are also on schedule :). Baby Michelle is now due in just 5 weeks. ..

Here is one of many Arapaima of around 70kg.

We received our first shipment of Siamese carp. We will be growing most of our carp and Mekong catfish stock offsite due to their special requirements ,BUT we have some fish we are growing under our Arapaima. Most of the fish are currently between 10 and 15kg.

Boom seems to have a nack for taking good BLOOPER shots . Here I am again trying to hold onto a lively Carp

This odd looking fish is Flathead Goonch [bagarius Suchus]..It was just such a cool looking fish i couldnt resist adding it to our stock.Not sure how big it will get or if it will end up in one of our MFP Aquariums.

Here is another Goonch species which is a Salween Goonch found in the Salween river in Myanmar. It wont grow as big as its Indian cousin but can still reach easily over 1 meter.

It looks like he wanted to take a chunk out of my arm but I was more worried about him biting other things once he jumped free. lol..

Here is another nice colourful Arapaima .

That will teach us for trying to pick one up for a picture. We should never have tried as it can harm the fish ..Last time we do that that..

I have a pond in Phuket and have also been growing some fish there . Now the EFT ponds are ready we netted the home pond and moved all the fish to EFT .I was amazed how many fish i had accumulated in such a short time..

Here is a nice Thai Mahseer from the home pond.. We also had 25 smaller Arapaimas, Peacock Bass, Red and Golden Mahseer, Albino Pacu, Golden dorado, Piraiba catfish Tarpon and several Arawana..It was defintely time to move them :)..

After the home pond it was time to net 2 stock ponds I had been renting. The overall experience is not one which I would repeat. Many dead fish and fish unaccounted for. The owner of the ponds was gracious enough to replace the 200 missing Redtail Cats of which none had survived, but my over all losses were well over 500,000 baht /$15,000 not including paid rent ...

Some Arapaimas which were supposed to be special stock were apparently switched for diseased fish in transit by a contracted fish delivery source.The diseased fish then contaminated the pond shared by many other fish. After speaking to the delivery source who of course denies he delivered diseased fish I dont know who or what to believe any more. I paid in advance for the Arapaimas .So where are the fish I paid for if the delivery source didnt deliver them ???

Some nice wallagoo were a good result of the stocking and pond rental.

There were some nice Tiger Shovelnose Catfish which were a bright point in the pond rental experience.

I was lucky to locate 20 Pla bambusas as the Thais call them . They are a cool fish in my opinion and quite rare. They are already a nice size so lets see how big we can get them before we open. I see them in the stock ponds every day as they swim around the pond edge attacking any prey they see.

I have had problems handling a lot of the fish you see in the photos and the reason is obvious once you think about it . All these fish have traveled some distance in the back of a pick up truck and are not happy on arrival to say the least . The last thing they want is someone trying to pick them up for a photo. They are also well rested and fresh and not tired like they would be after you would have caught them and landed them .

This Jau/Zungaroo did a quick flip and was out of my hands before I knew it. I was stupidly holding one of his pecs between my fingers .Lesson learned as he punctured my hand and made a bloody mess to the shock of Boom , Me and Mr Pong the delivery guy . I thought I would be heading for stitches but after wrapping my hand, applying pressure,and a kind an offer from Mr Pong to burn the wound with a cigarette Thai style the bleeding miraculously stopped .:)..

Some friends had commented that there were only pictures of me on the blog holding fish. I asked my step son Kwang to help out. He was eager to get a picture with this nice Arapaima. I am sure he had lots to tell his friends after his school holidays and the picture was all over his facebook page.

I am sure this picture didn't show up on his facebook though:). I guess Boom doesn't just take BLOOPER shots of me :)

Here is one of our many stocked Redtail Catfish . We have over 200 redtails already from this size up to 15kg. All of these fish will be a lot bigger before we open as they just dont stop eating. This is such a great background for fishing photos. I am sure there will be many EFT fish pics like this .

Stay tuned as many more fish to come...