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2008 Review Gillhams Fishing Resorts Krabi Thailand
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2008 Review Gillhams Fishing Resorts Krabi Thailand
What a year 2008 was - it was the first full year Gillhams was open. We first opened the doors to anglers in August 2007, and the very first anglers to fish were my old friends Terry Eustace and Joe Taylor. Terry caught his first ever arapaima here, and to this day it is still my favorite arapaima picture. Many of my friends own and run fisheries, and they all warned me how hard this business is. I did not believe them, but I now know why. Over the course of a year we have met some truly lovely great people, some OK people, and some extremely horrid ones. Luckily the really nice ones by far outnumber the a-------s! Perfect examples are people moaning because they have not had a big arapaima when it was 130lb, or saying they've had no big fish today when they have had a couple over 60lb, or that it's a bit slow when they had a 100lb fish in the morning and a 150lb fish in the afternoon! We even had a guy who caught 150lb, 220lb and 340lb arapaima plus a 60lb carp and two red tails of 50lb and 60lb all in a day say it was OK but not what he expected! Christ I would love to fish his local lake. Another one we hear is, aThe line broke - it's crap.a No, it broke because they don't know how to play fish, and when trying to stop a 300lb-plus beast at 30 miles an hour, something has to go! The list goes on, but the happy smiling faces as a decent angler catches a big fish far outweighs the idiots! Seeing grown men reduced to tears as they catch the fish of their dreams is what it's all about to us. What a shame the good guys sometimes fail and the prats catch the whackers!
Pet hates are the fellas you haven't seen for 15 years suddenly coming up to see us at a show, announcing he lost his contact details for me, his long lost mate, then asking for a mate's rate! Come on - I have never been hard to find! Or the ones who come here on holiday and make you their best friend in the whole world, and invite you to their house or a couple of days thinking it now qualifies them for free holidays for life! How about advising someone what bits of tackle to bring to increase their chances, only for them to present us with a bill for it afterwards - people bringing piles of junk that we will never use and wanting us to buy it. Or moaning because the drinks and snacks in our fridge using our electric, and which our staff refill, is five pence more than the supermarket 15 miles away, then filling our fridge with the stuff they saved three quid on with a ten quid taxi fare. Or bringing end tackle with them, and then taking a few bits home along with our bits and bobs - we have hook link material, baiting needles, pliers etc stolen every month. We even had one prat who whinged so much that we wouldn't buy some overpriced items he had brought with him that we purchased stuff off him that we get for free of our sponsors, only for him to take it out and use it during his holiday, and then take home some of the bits we had been forced to buy!
Then we get the ones who go to the local pet shop, buy some goldfish, and want to use them as bait in our lake! No wonder carp pox is on the increase in the UK with these morons about! All our fish are photographed in the water to protect them; 100lb fish bouncing across the ground does them no favours. But hey, for the ultimate photo, who cares?
Wanting to hold them out of the water for pictures on three cameras and a video, then wanting their mate to hold them the same, all in the name of 'look what I caught!' Get the camera ready, work out your angles and background, and take a couple of good shots - believe it or not it's the fish that matters. Guys who get a repeat catch - this happens when fishing one swim for a holiday, as a lot of predators are territorial. If you photographed a fish two days ago in the dark in the same swim, why on earth would you want another picture? Even if you are wearing a different shirt? Well folks, the list goes on and on, but as 90% of anglers who come here care about the fishes' welfare and want them to be just as pristine for the next person. We meet so many lovely people, for us it outweighs the bad, but when the bad ones come it spoils our day. If you are one of these people, please do us all a favour and stay away.
Anyway, that's the griping done, so onto the year, and what a year it has been with 3,465 fish landed of 29 species. The list below shows the figures from January 08 to December 08.
Arapaima - 432 total, best 400lb, best month November - 44 fish.
Alligator gar - 151 total, best 35lb, best month August - 21 fish.
Arawana - 12 total, best 8lb, best month September - five fish.
Asian red tail catfish - 40 total, best 31lb, best month November - six fish.
Barramundi - six total, best 31lb, best month February - two fish.
Big head carp - two total, best 30lb, best month July - one fish.
Black pacu - 186 total, best 55lb, best month December - 33fish.
Black shark carp - two total, best 10lb, best month March - one fish.
Chao-Phraya catfish - 62 total, best 64lb, best month September - 11 fish.
Common carp - six total, best 25lb, best month April - two fish.
Giant featherback - three total, best 21lb, best month May - one fish.
Giant freshwater stingray - two total, best 90lb, best month November - two fish.
Giant Gourami - nine total, best 15lb, best month March - five fish.
Julian's golden prize carp - 105 total, best 45lb, best month May - 25 fish.
Mekong catfish - 46 total, best 185lb, best month May - seven fish.
Mrigal (Asian grass carp) - five total, best 18lb, best month November - three fish.
Red tail Amazon catfish - 504 total, best 80lb, best month August - 76 fish.
Rohu carp - 83 total, best 21lb, best month December - 37 fish.
