It's not often a man gets to parlay his hobby into a lucrative career, but Sittipon 'Oz' Chanarat is doing nicely after turning his back on a 9-5 job and going fishing.
Photos by Thanarak Khoonton
Two years ago the buff, tattooed 28 year old with model good looks walked away from a job as a creative consultant at Animax TV channel and cast around for new opportunities. Oz says he just wasn't feeling the professional love anymore.
"Every time I went fishing I felt right, even when the days were crap," he explains.
But to hook his dream career, Oz _ a former Cleo Eligible Bachelor contestant in 2008 (he won the best body category) _ needed brains as well as looks.
He turned his fishing blog, which he started in 2009, into a website and gave it the catchy name "Bangkokhooker", fully aware of what that would mean in terms of page hits and building his own fame.
"Bangkokhooker was a persona I wanted to create," Oz says. "By creating a persona, I had to live it. Fake it, 'til you make it."
Friends vouch that Oz was a fanatical angler, spending every spare moment with a rod in his hand, but the persona of the Bangkokhooker was there to reel in the enthusiasts. Bangkokhooker organised fishing trips for farang and offered advice and lessons for beginners.
Importantly, he shared a wealth of knowledge of fishing in Thailand with the 3,600 members of his website.
"I had already reinvented myself as 'Oz Bangkokhooker', it was time to make myself known," Oz explains of his plans for aquatic world domination.
HOOKED: Oz holding a giant snakehead, a ferocious freshwater predator that likes to bite fish in half.
"I spent the next year transforming myself and my blog. The blog became a website. I taught myself how to film and edit my own fishing videos which I put onto YouTube, and I taught myself the social media game to get recognised.
"I kept financially stable with freelance writing and odd fishing tour jobs, selling fishing gear and my own clothing line, as well as selling advertising space on my site to keep the money coming in.
"Soon it became impossible to search the internet for anything fishing-related in Thailand without finding Bangkokhooker's Fishing in Thailand on the front page of Google."
Now, 10 months later, reality TV in the form of National Geographic's King Fishers has come knocking on his door. But it's not his first time on the small screen. Before moving to Canada for university, Oz was a VJ on MTV for a year.
King Fishers pits expert anglers from around the globe against each other as they face challenges ranging from from fly-fishing in Belize and ice angling in Sweden, to beach angling in Ireland.
As well as their fishing skills, competitors are judged on how they pull together the best fishing trip, including food and lodgings.
The format is a perfect fit for Oz after his experience looking after fellow anglers. He knows how to organise fishing trips and entertain guests. He decided to take the two other contestants to a market in Isan where the trio enjoyed a range of "exotic" dishes.
Nevertheless, he admits to being initially disappointed when the production team told him where he would be travelling to.
"I was really looking forward to going somewhere like Africa or South America, but I ended up going to two countries I've been to before: Australia and England. I had an awesome time anyway. I got to travel and fish. Who could say no to that?" he asks.
Oz describes his experience very positively, and he enjoyed the company of his two opponents, and experiencing different styles of fishing.
Now that King Fishers has put him in the limelight again he is currently discussing a TV show project with the History Channel.
"I'd love to have my own fishing show. I'd like to take a more anthropological stance. There are so many shows, amazing shows such as River Monsters that brought game fishing into the mainstream. Jeremy Wade [River Monster's host] has a lot of thank yous from me. And then there are other shows with an ecological take. But no one has done a show with an anthropological stance: How do people live, how do they fish? I would love to go fishing with them."
BIG GAME: A Mekong giant catfish that took half an hour to land.
But don't let his tattoos, skinny jeans and pretty face mislead you. Oz is a real angling technician. From listening to him, one quickly senses that fishing is much more than just a hobby.
He was immediately attracted by two aspects of fishing. The first is the uncontrollable nature or "the constant attempt to hit the jackpot", as he describes it. His first fishing experience with his uncle and grandfather at a catfish pond was a revelation.
But beginner's luck was not on his side. He did not catch anything. Three year-old Oz understood "the feeling of being able to overcome defeat through perseverance".
Since then he has scarcely put his rod down. This innate determination is closely linked with the second reason he loves the sport. Oz has a genuine will ''to improve my skills to improve my odds of succeeding''.
Practicing lure fishing, he considers himself a puppeteer animating hooks with incredible precision. It takes years for most people to learn such skills, but knowledge and years of practice have equipped Oz with all the tricks of the sport.
Also, it all depends on the hooks. ''They could look like a fish, a prawn, a worm. They would swim differently _ some might be at the bottom, some might be in mid-water, some might be on the surface. Your job is to put it in the most effective place. You have to read nature. You have to estimate where to put it according to the prey you want to catch and then accurately cast it from about 20 to 40 metres and then animate it, give life to this toy that is the hook,'' he explains.
But, Oz, who once worked as a reporter at the Bangkok Post, also has an emotional attachment to the sport.
In times of upset in his personal life he has turned to the calm of fishing for solace and inner peace.
''One of the big events of my life was my second-to-last day at the Bangkok Post. I received a phone call from my mum saying to come home as my stepfather had been in a deadly car accident.
''It was a terrible time, we all cried a lot. Like I always do, I went fishing and caught the biggest giant snakeheads and the biggest Mekong giant catfish in my life within the same two-week period.''
''Fishing to me is something I live for. I deal with all situations with fishing. I'm happy, I go fishing. If something tragic happens to me, I go fishing. For some reason, it has always worked out.''
When asked about his ambitions, Oz quotes motivational speaker Les Brown: ''Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among stars.''
'King Fishers' airs on the National Geographic Channel on Wednesday, from 9pm.
FISHERMEN ARE OFF THE HOOK
When asked about the disapproval of Buddhism concerning fishing, Oz, aka Bangkokhooker, straightaway defends himself by explaining that "competitive fishing is all about promoting sports", all the fish that he catches go back into the water just after. Oz also introduces the work of James Rose, a professor of zoology and physiology, according to which fish feel no pain. "Fish lack the cognitive ability to have a conscious thought. What they do is more of a reflex action than a conscious action. Biting things such as a hook is then just a reflex for them. The amazing thing with fishing is to be able to trigger that reflex."
Oz fishing on the River Trent, in England.
TIGHT LINES: Second from top, ‘King Fishers’ competitors Oz, Shane Compain and Jason Rodd in a boat on the Lum Chae reservoir, and above, in a tackle shop in Berrimah, Australia.
