VEGGIE OIL and ARAPIAMAS

I know that sounds like a crazy title for a post but I am sure you will understand after I explain .

I arrived in Bangkok to watch the netting of 6 Arapaimas all around the 1.8 m mark. I got a Taxi at the airport and made my best effort in Thai to give the driver the name of the place where i was going to meet my fish supplier. Once we got close i had to call my supplier for him to explain to the Taxi exactly where to meet as my Thai really isn't as good as i thought:(. I met the supplier and climbed into his truck and off we went .

It is always an adventure and surprise when I go to buy fish as I really have no idea exactly where I am most of the time .I have recently been to peoples homes, a huge Aquarium in a sports facility, a golf course and now a vegetable oil factory.

The pond was quite large and had already been drained down significantly and netted into smaller areas before I arrived.

The smaller areas were then netted to try to catch the individual Arapaimas first as the other fish in the pond were less valuable and could be netted later. The quicker we could get the Arapaimas out of the water the better as it is very unhealthy for the fish once the water gets stirred up during the netting process.

The first step for the brave guys that net these fish was to get them into this fine meshed long white butterfly type net . There is a video on the blog's video bar showing how this is done.

After this fish was safely in the net the next step was to get a blanket around it and remove the first net. This is not always easy and the fish are never happy at that point..

Everyone lent a hand to get the fish out of the water safely and ready to be measured.

All the fish had great coloring and I was happy to buy them for the agreed price. They will look great when customers catch them and take their trophy photos. The 6 fish were measured between 175 and 185 cm. Our numbered microchips were also installed in each fish for identification and monitoring.

The fish were immediately shipped in individual aerated pick up trucks from the pond to the resort in Phang Nga. The fish were all released healthy and are currently feeding like mad on dead fish and pellets and piling on weight.