Thread: Bagging up Indian style

Originally Posted by Oneabung

next thing you will be starting guided angling holidays to India!

I've been thinking about it for nearly ten years since I first went to this stretch of river. Problem is, the locals don't want any more foreign tourists invading. I get told every year that I've bought too many new anglers along.

No more pix, but I did manage another 20 and a double on my last day, both on film. I'm now going to Bangalore for week which will include a trip to the Wildlife Association of South India's lake. Hopefully I'll catch a rohu and a murrell, they will make a great change from mahseer and help to make my film complete.

And, (can you believe it?), I'm itching to get home now and have a proper fish. Still four weeks to go though and a whole new experience to come when I go to fish a fast Himalayan river for a different species of mahseer...

Originally Posted by SPADGER

Steve you must be mad mate.

You didnt know ?

And, (can you believe it?), I'm itching to get home now and have a proper fish. Still four weeks to go though and a whole new experience to come when I go to fish a fast Himalayan river for a different species of mahseer...

Steve,
You are definitely certifiable.

Thanks for all the kind words and support! I just need to do some proper fishing now and escape the constant 35 degree heat.

Went to Southern Karnataka mid week with a mate from Bangalore. He runs a tour company taking people on adventure trips, but purely on a part-time basis.
His main driving force is conservation and he is easily the most ecologically minded person I know in India.
If anyone is interested, his name is Sandeep Chakraborty and his company is Outrigor Tours.

On the fisrt afternoon, I gave Sandeep a quick demo of fishing floating crust. There were fish up for it straight away, but I only hooked and lost one. At that point, I didn't know what kind of fish it was, but it didn't fight too hard, staying deep all the time, but then the hook simply dropped out.
I then showed Sandeep how to fish 6mm pellets on the waggler. Within half an hour, I had two fish on the bank. Both the same species, which I now believe to be Jerdon's Carp, and both around 6oz.
We took a break to have lunch and then continued as before. I set the film camera rolling and landed another Jerdon's Carp, this time about 2lb.
I had been fishing shallow up to this point in the mouth of the feeder stream that feeds the lake. The depth was about 10', so I started to gradually search down through the depth.
On reaching 8' deep, the float buried and the clutch screamed as what was obviously a mahseer ran 60 yards down the lake. Although not huge (I imagine it would have been a 3-4lber), they are very hard to control on 6lb line and a size 14 Barbless Carp Feeder.
Again, the hook just dropped out, although with huge rafts of water hyacinth hitting the line, it may have been knocked off.
I carried on to land a 2lb mahseer and lose one more before Sandeep called across that he was playing a fish. His turned out to be a Calabasu of 5lb.

DSC_0007.jpg

I had a couple of casts close into the feeder stream's wall with the float set shallow again and had a final Jerdon's Carp for that day.



We then settled down to a bottle of rum and quite seriously put the World's problems to rights by the time we had finished it. Waking still drunk at 7am, my morning stint fishing ragi paste for a bigger fish came to nothing.

A great little trip and the evidence I needed that India is not just about mahseer fishing.
That said, I am leaving Bangalore on Sunday night for a 40 hour train journey to Calcutta, followed by another 16 hours up to the Himalayas to fish in Sikkim for Himalayan mahseer.

Originally Posted by SPADGER

Just watched one of your dvd's the one at Larford with Neil Machin.

At Larford? Sure it wasn't Cudmore fishing the Speed Mould?
Thanks for the praise anyway.

Originally Posted by SPADGER

Have a curry for me.

Ah, but what kind of curry? I'm in Calcutta now and the curries here are very different from those in South India.
I prefer the South Indian style of food. Much thinner gravy so the accent is more on the veg, fish or meat in the sauce. Also a wider range of curry types down south I feel.
Give me a Mangalore or Keralan fish curry any day of the week.

Steve,

Sounds like you are having the time of your life over there!

I really hope the video turns out to be good as I will definately be after a copy - it's got to be better than that Robson Green's efforts!

Originally Posted by Oneabung

it's got to be better than that Robson Green's efforts!

Been out and shot some beautiful fish with a bow and arrow this morning. Should make great viewing! lol