Arapaima

The Arapaima can be found cruising around the upper levels of the territory hunting for food as well as lurking deep down around weed beds and snags where it will ambush prey fish.

Although big and strong looking the Arapaima are very delicate and can easily die if not properly landed in good time. They need to be given time to recover before a quick photo and being released.

The Arapaima is a bony tongue fish and has large scales which range from Olive green to Silver Grey and slowly turn blood red/pink with bright red edges towards it posterior and tail. The scales on a large Arapaima can reach 6cm (2 1/2") in length. Its long body is broad and creates amazing speed and power which it uses when catching prey. It has a long sloping forehead and its  lower jaw is slightly overshot. The current (at time of writing page) IGFA world  record catch for this hard and dirty fighting fish is 130kg (286lb) and was caught by Jakub Vagner in Amazonia Brazil on August 17th 2008.

The Arapaima is a true predator of gigantic proportions. A beautiful fish that is very strong and athletic, a predator of prey fish as well as leaping out of the water to grab birds from hanging tree branches.

The Pirarucu as the Arapaima is known reaches gigantic proportions in its native South America Arapaima's have been recorded to be over 200kg (450lbs). They have been successfully introduced into Thailand to an increasing number of fishing lakes and fishing parks.  There are specimens of Arapaima that are known to be well over the world record weight for this fish. Fishing in Thailand for Arapaima is by no means easy, they can be fussy eaters and can be seen at many fishing lakes surfacing (Arapaima have to surface occasionally for oxygen and make a loud gulping noise when they do ) and rolling their massive and beautiful blood red tails as to taunt you.

Although the Arapaima gigas is not the hardest fighting and mostly built for ambush attack they are very mobile for their size and will head for any snag which is near to them. Older fishing venues in Thailand that stock the Arapaima such as Bungsamran lake in Bangkok have many posts and underwater construction of fishing pontoons and lakeside bungalows. The Arapaima (especially the biggest ones) will head straight for these sorts of places as soon as it gets the chance to try and break free.

In the wild at one time, there were many Arapaima specimens over 3m (9.8ft) in length that weighed more than 150kg (330lb). Sadly now they are pretty much all gone. This is due to over fishing, water pollution and loss of its habitat.