Can I fish in Chao Praya River?

[Melvin Roper]

Hello everyone,

I am an American but will be living in Thailand for the next year or so.

I recently went on a Chao Praya River tour on a longboat and saw probably hundreds of fish. Being an avid-fisher stateswide I was wondering what types of fish there are in there and if you have any good spots to fish from. 

[CharlieH]

MOVED to the Fishing forum .

[Adumbration]

If it is legal to catch these fish and they are edible, there will be lots of Thais fishing for them, especially given the current economic situation.  So I suggest that you just keep and eye out for a thai fisherman and then have a look what he is doing and then imitate.

 

If you are an avid fisherman like myself then it will not matter if you speak zero Thai, because you will be able to see what tackle and bait he is using and buy the same.  If you want to ask more questions just find yourself a "cute" uni girl who has reasonable English and then ask her to work for you for half a day as a translator.  Might as well cast as wide a net as possible.

[jak2002003]

I would not eat anything that came out of that river!

 

Where there are any temples it's illegal to fish...don't know about the rest of the river. 

[rwill]

When my family came to visit me we stayed at the IBIS Riverside for a few days.  There were people fishing at the bank there.  If I remember correctly when I asked what they were fishing for they said catfish.

 

If you google 'fishing in Chao Praya river' you will see some youtube videos and another thread on this forum.

[Kenny202]

Not sure about the Chao Praya but probably depends where you are talking about. Near Bangkok I wouldn't waste my time. I was a keen fisherman back in Australia but catching fish that were considered nuisance fish (Carp, Catfish) back home and were always thrown back, its hard to get excited over catching them here, particularly when it involves cooking outside in the blistering sun. One very sought after sport fish here is the Snakehead which they catch usually with lures in the flooded rice fields. They look like a lot of fun to catch as a light sportfish. Google it see what you think 

 

[swm59nj]

From what I hear about the pollution in that river.  You would probably glow in the dark from eating any fish in there

 

[UKJASE]

the fish i mainly see in the chao praya is the sawai fish.  a type of catfish.  they sell this fish at the market, so it is edible, but i am not sure how tasty it is.

 

there are lots of lakes in and around bangkok too to fish.  more thai style ones, for 100 baht a day, and some farand ones where you can catch a larger variety of fish - carp, redtail catfish, amazonian arapaima etc, butthese are more like 1000 baht up

 

freshwater fishing in thailand is great.  i saw a 100+ kg  arapaima pulled out the other week.  gave the guy one hell of a fight ????

 

[brianthainess]

As said the pollution would deter me, and any way 'fresh' water fish i have tasted in Thailand have mud flavour, that's why Thais tend to mask the flavour with heaps of spices, sea fish only for me thanks.   

[Tony125]

It's not really fishing when you can reach down and pull them  out of the water. Don;t need any lures or even bait.  They have signs near temples "no fishing alowed" but other areas I'm sure you could.

 

[xtrnuno41]

Fishing for Thai actresses? You better do it on land, then they might still be alive

[Fairynuff]

On 4/29/2022 at 4:04 PM, Adumbration said:

If you want to ask more questions just find yourself a "cute" uni girl who has reasonable English and then ask her to work for you for half a day as a translator

Just listen to yourself 

[Benny C]

See feeding silver catfish on YouTube. There must be millions of it in the river. There could be reasons why the local do not fish and eat it. Unless they are very poor. Maybe.