INDIANANGLER

Hi,
Just got back from Galibore after a camping / fishing trip. On Jan.8th there were 3 big fish landed from crocodile rock/pool. First a 68,then a 98 Golden Mahseer in the morning and later an 80 in the evening.
Surprisingly the beat between Haira and Galibore has not had a good fish as far as I know.
The best fish from our trip was a 40 from Mutki Pool where we were camping. Owen landed it on Jan.5th late in the evening.

Sandeep

What was the water level like at Galibore please? Ernest and I are leaving the UK for Galibore on Friday.

hi who caughty the big fish , has anybody been fishing haria , kengal , mossola , etc , is the water levels good or have they gone low , ernest with no love from cuba !!!

hey Sandeep,

congrats..

will we get to see any snap of this trip..

regards,
pranav..

Hi,

Another 54 from Kengal.....Joe was the angler.

Sandeep

Pics please

A buddy of mine, an angler from our forum David (Davefish) caught the biggies including the 98 pounder. I had a call from him a couple of days ago.

Bopanna

He is in the Andamans at the moment, possibly for a couple of months, so doubt he'll be able to get any pics up as he hasn't got a computer with him. Saw the pics but was fishing upstream so didn't get to see it in the flesh. He also had 3 others over 60.

Hi Guys, just spent a couple of days with Dave here in Port Blair. Saw some pics of his fish and they were big! Will probably give him a call tomorrow to see how his fishing's going.

Most fish this season, including when I was there were being caught at Mudhki. This probably due to the (stupidly) fact there's a tent with the chaps ground baiting at Mudhki, which is at the end (down stream) of the stretch that's being fished. An ideal thing would be to have a tent near Mosslehalla and one at croc rocks to evenly spread the ground-baiting. First season where the ground-baitings been done so far downstream.

Regards,
Mighty Marlin.

Exactly what we kept telling them at the camp but still took nearly two weeks for them to set up another camp upstream. Personally I'm not keen on too much feeding whilst I'm actually fishing anyway.
Say hello to Dave from me if you speak to him, hope he is having a great time, I'm jealous sat in my office in London at the moment!

That is really sad news if they are now pre-baiting the stretch. Although all the waste from the kitchen went in at the camp I thought generally the stretch was left to its own devices and the fish just patrolled naturally. One of the best things for me is the basic, uncommercialised feel of the place. Maybe the pre-baiting is one step closer to an Indian version of a carp puddle!

I hope not.........

Darren.

Darren,
Pre-baiting is something that has been going on for years - right back to the early part of last century as it is mentioned in Circumventing the Mahseer.
On the Cauvery it is used as a way of getting the mahseer to feed on ragi and get them browsing around in certain areas, but on the Himalayan rivers it is more often used as a way of attracting in all the prey fish (they tend to use atta rather than ragi) which in turn attracts the mahseer.
From what i have been told the stretch was always heavily pre-baited prior to a certain tour operator (don't worry Bopanna I'm not going to name him!) arriving with his groups of anglers, and then stopped once he arrived.
It does work well as long as it is done properly - i.e. feeding for a week/10 days and then stopping, but I don't think it is good if bait is constantly going in as it makes the fish lazy.
I have spoken to old WASI members who were doing this 30 years or more ago and did very well as a result.

Gary

Hi Gary,

I did understand it has been done in the past but understood it was specifically for individual anglers rather than to cater for the commercial holiday angler trade. Maybe I 've just viewed the place through rose tinted glasses............

Darren.

Darren,
Could be wrong, but from what I have heard it was always heavily baited before the commercial holiday angler trade arrived then they stopped feeding just beforehand - which didn't exactly help if you like to book direct as i do and go at different times. I love fishing it when anyone can go and have made plenty of friends amongst the Indian anglers who I've met, many of whom have fished the river for many years and are very knowledgeable.

I don't think the baiting really helps that much anymore as whenever you do it you'll always be interfering with someone else's fishing as you don't want to be fishing the stretch when the bait is going in. Would have worked in the old days when you could do it in one area and then go off and fish elsewhere, but that was before the river got busy.

There were some crazy days this year where nearly everyone in the camp was fishing Crocodile pool - not me though as personally i hate even seeing other coracles when I'm out there, one of the reasons i go is to get away from all that, have to put up with it the rest of the year when I'm fishing in the UK!

Thanks for the reply Gary.

I would personally prefer to fish way upstream in the wild water rather than sitting it out for a lump in the deeps any day. Each to their own I suppose.

Cheers,

Darren.

Have to agree, but the problem was that Hiara down to Camp Pool wasn't fishing very well at all when i was there, had days where we came all the way down with some good chilwa and crabs and didn't even get a bite from small fish.
If you are talking about properly upstream, i.e. above Bheemeshwari at Chicamakhali and Doddamakhali, the poaching is a big problem up there.

Hi Gary,

I meant the bit above ie Kengal etc.....

Strange how regular, heavy pre-baiting has started on the lower stretch and the top of the stretch is not producing......... The point I was skirting around but was worried could be the case!

Darren.

Darren,
They baited in probably the worst place that they could, right at the bottom of their stretch (well the bit they fish anyway!). I think another factor in the upper stretches of Galibore not fishing well was the low water temperatures that we had this season - many of the fish seemed to be in the deeper, slower water. It was hard to even get a bite from small mahseer in the faster water.
To be honest they don't pre-bait all that heavily anyway, certainly not when you look at the amount of small fish in there, particularly tilapia, and in some places a boiled ball of ragi was only lasting 10 minutes or so.

I'm hoping that when i go back in a few weeks time it is going to be quieter in terms of anglers and that the water temperature will have risen.

Gary

baiting spots for the lazy trophy hunters ... might as well park a few, stall feed them and let the punters catch them to leave the rest of the rivers wild as it should be.

real mahseer fishing is reading miles of wild river, seeing the swims change every year, getting screwed some years with the weather and rains, putting your line into places with intelligence and not trashing the river to get a bite, and then maybe getting a decent fish.

not much respect for the fish or the ways of the sport anymore.

I think you will find that baiting the river is a fairly traditional way of fishing on the Cauvery, and many other rivers, and is mentioned in books such as 'Circumventing the Mahseer', and has also been employed by many Indian anglers over the years. It is a tactic that is also employed on the northern rivers, but in this case more as a way of drawing in the food fish which the mahseer then follow.

Would have to agree though about not fishing in places where you have little chance of landing the fish, certainly doesn't do them any good to be towing yards of line behind them.

I like that..

I'll spin or fish whole day for a 1 lb fish or not even that, than prefer a lazy trophy... is that true angling ??

I plan to make a small pond in my garden for barra's... next time you are in Mumbai. please be my guest.

BTW. you never lost a fish??

Santo! To answer your question.

The fish that I have lost will always be the greatest for me. They were really big, enormous (even the minnows) They were really mean. And the buggers made a monkey out of me.

I'll get them one day. That I think is true angling.

And there was me thinking that 'true angling' was enjoying yourself, whatever type of fishing you happen to do.
My attitude has always been to let people get on with their fishing as long as they aren't harming the fish or others anglers.

As for losing fish, of course i have, as has probably everyone who has ever seriously fished for mahseer. The point i was making was that i would prefer not to fish a spot if i knew the chances of landing any fish i hooked were very low.

Incidentally, i don't just fish on the Cauvery but have also spent some time on the northern rivers (Ramganga, Ganges, Karnali, Babai) and that has always been with plugs, spoons and spinners, plus a bit of fishing with chilwa. I am happy to fish for mahseer anywhere and have been just as pleased to catch a 10-pounder after 3 or 4 days struggling for a bite in the North as i have been to catch a big one from the Cauvery.

Exactly! Gary, I enjoy myself chasing them fish. Big, small give them to me any size. If I can't catch them, great. If I do, fantastic.

Enjoy yourself mate. i don't think anyone is trying to prove anything here.

cheers

I just love being in India - which i why i now use virtually all my holiday fishing there each year!
A year ago i had a great trip up to Nepal on the Babai river for 4 days, never even had a bite but managed to get good photos of gharial crocodiles, found lots of tiger pug marks near to our camp, saw a herd of elephants plus lots of other wildlife, and walked over 40 km one day when we got carried away doing a bit of exploring (kept wondering what was around the next bend!). None of the people i was with spoke anything other than very basic English and my Nepalese is virtually non-existent, but we still managed to communicate and had some memorable evenings around the camp fire drinking the local rice wine, although some weren't quite as easy to remember due to the strength of the drink!
If i only went fishing to catch a few fish then i could do it a lot closer to home than flying 6,000 miles to India, or sometimes even further when i go off to places like Brazil.

I will be enjoying myself back on the Cauvery camping in a few weeks time and if a monster comes along then i won't be shaking it off.

post deleted on second thought

Hmm....like Jeen cant resist this one too..yeah..I for one am not a fan of feeding swims and waiting for the fish to show up. I much rather chase the predator using lures. Of course - to each angler his own

Having said that - dont really care that we are "inviting more than our fair share of anglers" - lets face it - we dont own anything on this planet - we have borrowed it from our grandchildren and its our responsibility to protect it.

Well said Sudhir .... Cheers .... now lets all bat for "1411 " ...........to hell with my name is Khan and all tha nonsense that comes with it

I have always been made to feel most welcome by the local anglers that i have met on my many trips to India, and quite a few of them have now become good friends.
By the sounds of it there are quite a few of you who wouldn't want to fish at Galibore and places like it, and to some extent i can see why as it is now fairly commercialised, but it is worth remembering that if it wasn't for anglers fishing these stretches then there would be no protection for the mahseer there and they would be left to the poachers - as they have been up at Doddamakali which used to be the best stretch on the Cauvery for the bigger fish.

I also enjoy lure fishing, but when i fish the Cauvery in November/December time when water levels are still very high and often coloured then lures aren't a very good way of catching the fish, of course they do work later in the season when the level is low and water clear and the fish are much easier to locate.

It is worth remembering that you'll find some anglers who would argue that the only 'proper' way to catch this mighty game fish is by use of a fly and who would certainly turn their nose up at the use of either bait or lures. As has already been said though 'each to their own' and for me every minute that i spend on the rivers of India in pursuit of mahseer is special to me.

For all you guys who think catching a big mahseer in the Kaveri is a whizz just because the place is baited early season, think again. I have been fishing that river and it seems like forever and i am still looking for that elusive big one. You still have to be very lucky and you certainly need the skill.

The conditions change every year, and it seems like there are less big fish being caught in fast water than in years gone by. The fish could be getting lazy with the baiting and thus they hang around the deep pools, or it could be that the Mussalah's are dying out (they used to hang out in fast water quite a bit) and the grandmothers that remain stay put in the deep pools. Blue fins upto 50lbs are still occassionaly taken from Kengal and Hiara but the bigger ones are mostly in the deep pools.

David's fish was a beauty and so was Joe's 90 both taken from the same deep pool, but give me a 50 in fast water and i will jump for joy!

Owen!!

Where are you my friend? Good to hear from you .

Jeen

Hes been doing Muniswamy and his donkey because they stole his slippers ,,, the fluffer dosent call me ...he just surfaces like one of them Toitles and disappears again

Jeen, he's headed to your place....

Bops,

I know just to day morning I got a call from the farm that Owen is on the way and should be there before afternoon

Jeen

And yes Fred,

His donkey will have a tough time climbing 2000meters!!

Jeen

what about his toitle....

Had a great time at your place Jeen. Beautiful place. Thanks mate!