New personal best Mekong . Hilarious..

I Finally broke the 200lb mark with this awesome fish.

I caught it fish Float fishing with a little added excitement .
I had just cast out my second float rod and fired out a half dozen ground bait balls around the float. I was speaking to a new Gillham's guest and sat down to make some more groundbait. The guest calmy said " your rod!! your rod!!" I looked down and saw my rod sliding towards the lake.
It looked like slow motion but I knew i had just seconds to react . I jumped up knocking over the groundbait bowl and staggered towards the rod . The rod was already in the water when i followed it into the drink with a graceful belly flop .The Russian judge gave me a 8.8 for water displacement:).
The odds were against me according to the few onlookers as the rod was already under the water when i made my big splash .I reached out under water in desperation and unbelievably grabbed the end of the butt . I came up coughing and spluttering with more than just a mouthful of water .
I started to desperately flounder/swim to shore while holding the rod up with one hand . I quickly got next to the shore and shallow enough where i could put my feet down . It was then quite the struggle to get out of the lake unassisted of course in case the fish was a record .

...

Back on dry land and on my feet the fight was on .. I battled for an hour with this great fish before landing it . No wonder i had trouble swimming to shore as this monster was all of 210lbs.
What a great fish and well worth the crazy dive .
I am glad i could be such a source of entertainment for at least 6 people who were literally pissing themselves laughing after seeing me jump in ..

This isnt the first time I have pulled this stunt as i did it before and lost my glasses in the lake .I had to rely on the Thai Guide Gollock to find them who then claimed a $100usd reward .
You think I would have learned from this and thrown my glasses off before i jumped in . Well I didnt and it took only a few minutes before thrifty Shawn Gillham was over to see if I had left my specs on . I was busy fighting the fish and announced that yes i was really that dumb and that yes the reward was the same ..
He was back in 5 minutes with my new glasses . At least he had cleaned them but that was still a fast 100 bucks ...
All's well that ends well . A fun story , a great fish released healthy and my expensive new glasses back on my head .Not only that but rod and reel back on dry land too.

So I am getting closer to the current world record and now only 50lbs to go :)..

I have also added some great live footage of catching 100lb Mekongs float fishing .. check out the video bar at the bottom of this blog ... We are talking INSTANT MEKONG lol what a blast!!!!

Fishing in November and December

I was able to fish a few times in November and caught lots of fish but nothing huge.
I set a new personal best for number of Mekong in one day with 3 fish all around 90lbs

I also managed to get a live video of a Mekong I caught while float fishing .
It was really quite difficult to catch a fish basically at the exact time I needed to to get the footage .
The fish was caught in the prime time for them though which seems to be from 4;30pm. to 5;30pm and also by using a catapult to put out lots of bait prior to filming to draw the fish into the area..

Latest BIG Mekong 170lbs Oct 2011

After catching 3 big Mekongs in the first 3 days of Oct 2010 I wanted to see if i could do the same again in 2011. I fished Sept 30th to Oct 4th and caught a few around 100lbs and lost a few bigger fish but then landed this awesome 170lb whopper on October 3rd same time and place as my 190lb fish the year before .

Since Oct 3rd I have fished another week or so for mekongs and my biggest fish being 140lbs and best day 3 fish in 2 hours all between 80 to 100 lbs. All fish were caught float fishing with boilies between 3pm and 6 pm as that seems to be the best feeding time for them .

I am hoping to fish again in November around the same date the world record was caught last year .This 260lbs giant was caught in a similar area also float fishing .

New World record Mekong 260lbs

I am back in Toronto after having some great fishing experiences in both Thailand and India .
I was just sitting here trying to do some work but actually thinking about when can I get back to Gillhams to chase that world record Mekong Catfish when I got an email from Stuart the owner of Gillham's Fishing Reort which basically says . "Record gone!!! 260lb fish caught" .

I thought he was just pulling my leg and called him right away to check out his story .
WOW I couldn't believe it .. The record was chattered when a 260 lb fish was caught float fishing .. Yes you guessed it right where I was fishing in October .

I am Happy for the new record holder, BUT i must be honest a little crushed that i wasn't the lucky angler.Thats fishing and I will keep at it trying to catch one of the 300lb fish swimming in Gillhams depths.

If you would like more info or to see some pics of this fantastic fish they can been seen i the Nov 2010 Gillhams newsletter when it is out in December

160lb Mekong no match for the Shimano Stella 20000

I have just returned from an exciting GT fishing trip in the Andaman Islands with fishing buddies Richard and Colin . I had been talking about [no not bragging] the great Mekong fishing I had experienced in early October.
I will know better next time as on arrival I got blanked for the first 3 days running. ..OUCH!!!!!! I was getting quite frustrated to say the least .
Later after a few beers i looked up at my surroundings and reminded myself that I was fishing in paradise :)even if I was fishless.

Things looked up the next day when i landed this 160lb fish ,.

I wanted to see how the Shimano Stella would handle these big fish .. No problem for the Stella that's for sure . The drag system is absolutely awesome.... The only problem is that the Stella is not built specifically for this type of fishing and doesnt have a bait runner .

So if you use your Stella for Mekongs WATCH OUT!!!! or your pricey reel could be in the drink...
This advice comes from someone who is still missing a few rods and reels even with bait runners.:)

Mekong Madness at Gillhams

I decided to start this blog as i wanted to share the excitement of fishing for Mekong catfish .
In my opinion they are one of the strongest fresh water fish and put up an amazing back breaking fight.I caught my very first Mekong bottom fishing with a pop up .I have learned a lot since then and have now changed tactics.

Now my preferred method is float fishing with braided line. When they take the bait the line just screams off the reel .These fish may look big and slow but they are so fast you couldn't believe it
You have such a direct contact with the fish using the braid it is really an unforgiving fight.



There are huge Mekong Catfish here at Gillhams fishing resort Krabi Thailand and the world record at the time of this blog was 191lbs. The prior world record also from Gilliam's was 185 lbs.
After catching numerous fish in the 100lb range I think I am becoming a little obsessed with catching these fish and just want to catch bigger and bigger fish .

I recently had the most amazing 3 days fishing i can remember .
I was float fishing Oct 1st and landed a 180lb fish which was just 5lbs short of the old world record and 11lbs shy of the current record .The fish put up a truly back breaking fight.
I had to jump in the lake and chase the fish up the lake which was quite an experience in itself.

After catching this fish I started to think .WOW what if I could get the work record??? as there are fish in the lake which were stocked up to 300lbs.I figured there is a long way between 191 and 300lbs.

On Oct 2nd around the same time of day and fishing in the same area my rod screamed off and i was into another good fish . This fish fought just as hard as the 180lber from the day before but was only around 130lbs.

I was quite excited to catch 2 big fish ion consecutive days and was back at it the next afternoon .
I hooked another fish around 4pm and was convinced this was something huge.
Again I had to jump in the lake to chase the fish as I was running out of line and couldn't stop the fish . I realized jumping in the lake was losing my height advantage on the fish and fighting him on his own turf so I think I was a little late to jump in and lost the fish as it went round a corned at the end of the lake . I was quite upset to say the least when the line snapped.

I am not one to give up so I rigged up the rod again and cast right back out . 2 casts later the float shot off again and i was into another fish. After an awesome fight of about 40 minutes i landed what was estimated to be a 190lb fish . I couldn't get any closer to the record with out breaking it ..

I fished hard for the next week but couldn't get anything over 140lbs. i thought the only way to get something in the net over the record was to get in there myself . No record but what an awesome time fishing for my now favorite fish.