To escape the cold and wet weather, we usually spend two weeks in November or December somewhere warm. This year, we chose Thailand, where we spent a weekend in Bangkok and then visited two islands near Phuket: Ko Yao Noi (to the north) and Ko Yao Yai (to the south). Naturally, I wanted to take the opportunity to do a bit of fishing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as I had hoped and there weren’t as many opportunities as I had imagined.

First we visited Ko Yao Noi, the smaller of the two islands. Both have a very shallow shore area, so there weren’t many places to fish from. So I left it at one attempt from a pier not too far from our hotel, the Purana Resort & Spa. I tried various lures, including plugs and rubber fish, but couldn’t get a bite. However, there must have been a few delicate bites, as a pink rubber fish was covered in bite marks. The offset hook was probably not a good idea though, treble hooks would probably have been the better choice. The pier, which can also be seen in the cover picture, can be found here:

I then made another attempt, this time from the boat, from Ko Yao Yai. Over dinner, we had met a tour operator who also offered fishing trips. Unfortunately, this was not a classic big game or other fishing trip, but actually pure bottom fishing. Even with a rod, a few hooks were simply attached to a sinker and tipped with shreds of fish or pieces of squid and lowered to the bottom. In fact, it was just as boring as it sounds. The biggest fish I caught was maybe 25 cm with a lot of goodwill, and there were also a few baby barracudas. I would have preferred to release most of them, but this fishing technique, where you bring the fish up very quickly from up to 20m from the bottom, is unfortunately not very gentle on the animals. I also had the impression that the locals were very grateful for every catch. It looks something like this (including the hanger with the bottom lead):

It was also a bit of a shame that I had informed the tour operator beforehand that I had my own equipment for spinning and squid fishing with me and wanted to use it. It was also almost impossible to communicate on the boat, so unfortunately it didn’t work out in the end. At least the financial loss wasn’t that great – the whole trip had cost the equivalent of just 90 euros for both of us. If you want to try it yourself, here is the link. If you also need a phone number, please let me know. You can also go snorkeling, but we didn’t do that. The weather was also more suitable for fishing than swimming. This was the entire catch:

Tackle shopping is possible on the island – at least on Ko Yao Yai, I didn’t see anything on Yao Noi. I found a total of three stores. These are generally small stores that also, but not exclusively, stock fishing equipment. This is my haul (from the left):

I bought the small, green softbait with spinner blade and the hooks for bottom fishing in the first store. The place is probably called Phru Nai, here’s my pin on Google Maps. If the owner is there himself, there is also a consultation. The ladies who looked after the store on my first visit were less interested in it or perhaps just didn’t know about it. Small range, but reasonably priced.

I bought the green and white jig in another store a little further north. This would probably be best described as a general store here. In addition to a small selection of fishing lures, you can also buy spare parts for scooters, screws or household goods, for example. A little advice was included and the prices are also very reasonable.

The best-stocked store is basically right opposite and you can even find it on Google Maps (see map below). There are also international brand products and higher quality reels, which are attractively presented. The shelves are mostly dominated by squid lures, but you can also find a few plugs from Rappala & Co. in between. I opted for a crankbait in Nemo design and a very colorful squid jig.

It was more than enough for vacation purposes and I also got some nice souvenirs. I’ll be trying out the Nemo crank here at home soon.

Finally, as usual, the tackle I used: