INDIANANGLER

I'm with you Steve on hydroelectric dams. They may benefit the cities, but not the enviroment. With Damns, the local people then see the water as their enemy - the destroyer of homes, lives, land.

Communites need to see the water as a friendly force, that is there for them to care for, and that will care for them back with correct management. As Steve and I have discussed at length; education at a groundroots level with the benefits of enviromental tourism/angling being churned back to the local communities benefit is the best way for communities to feel the value of their enviroment. Keeping there enviroment pristine should provide them with health care, education, jobs. You only have to look at the sucess of the Great Apes in Uganda and Rwanda, and how the community benefits, and how these benefits are past on the Apes in terms of the local communities protection.

Jim

The problem is that there are no apes around here. we are governed by a bunch of monkeys.

Hello Steve, there appears to be a communication gap.

Mark's and your findings are very interesting and turns on its head what we have believed to be the tor mussulah of the Kaveri. But at the same time you have not mentioned or apparently not come across the second species which inhabits the river. I have mentioned this fish in my earlier posting or two. The existence of this fish has been known since time memorial and taken by anglers. Mr Radcliffe of the Niligiri Wildlife Association was a regular visitor to the Kaveri and on every visit landed a couple spinning. These fish inhabited a particular stretch of a few kilometers under WASI,s care. I have a picture of one of about 100 lbs. Another member of WASI has a picture of a ghillie with one of these fish as long as he is tall. A 77 pounder was taken by a lady in my presence in 1981 when I officiated as consultant and guide for WASI. These mahseer are slim compared to the more common deep bodied fish and the colour a shimmering silver. I have been fishing on the river longer than most members of the forum but not as frequently as Owen and he has not once referred to this particular fish or to my mention of it in my earlier posting. Has it become extinct? Which is the mussulah and which is the Khudree?
This calls for serious discussion.

Maj General Eswariah of WASI will I believe enlighten you further.

Regards

Don

Don,
We are still learning, but our source at the moment is from a book called the mahseer of the Western Ghats. Not sure of the author, but Mark will know.
It may well be that the author is not the expert we are accepting him to be?

I think most of the fish I have seen in photos are khudree, as they do not have a really pronounced hump. Only a genetic test would tell for sure, which is too late for most of them obviously.
Data is available to match strains of mahseer with a genetic map, but we don't have access to it at present. Hopefully we can get those genetic maps at some point in future.

The aforementioned author is a scientist and believes that each river held an individual strain of mahseer. As khudree is far and away the most dominant strain in the Kaveri, that is what leads to the conclusion that all captures prior to the first artificial stockings were khudree.
But perhaps the author is wrong in his 'single strain' assessment. The only way to tell will be by studying photos, or museum specimens and hoping conclusions can be drawn.

Still, we need to talk to guys like you and Owen and check out your pictures to stand any chance of coming up with a definitive answer to the mahseer species debate.

Yes Steve, we must meet.

Don

Hi everyone,

Lively discussions have obviously been had since I last got a chance ot log on! Expecially to Owen, Don and Steve, interesting stuff indeed!

As I have also just posted on the Mahseer Species forum, I have just completed a tortuous trawl through the scientific literature and found a lot of disagreement throughout! However, I have drafted a first cut at a key for the mahseer species of India based on the six species accepted by Fishbase and using characteristics recorded elsewhere. (I am not persuaded about the existence of kulkarnii either!!) Neither an easy task nor a perfect result, but it is a start. Anyone want to try out a PDF version of it? Give me your e-mail via this forum and it shall be yours!

I read earlier in this thread that Tor khudree were only introduced into the Cauvery in 1997. Was this right, or did the poster mean that fingerlings were first used to augment the native stock then?

Also, other authors suggest that Tor mussullah is not native to the Cauvery (only to the Godavari and Krishna) but that seems contradicted by sizes of kahseer banked in the colonial era.

Anyone know anything about this?

Cheers, all,

M

Hi Mark,

Please mail me the PDF copy.

Bops

Hi Mark, nice to hear from you again and about your research and findings. I am convinced Tor Mussullah is native to the Kaveri. Here is my e-mail address: donsmith@dataone.in

Cheers,

Don

Hi Steve / Mark,
I will be in touch on this subject with Mark and yourself.
Regards
Owen

Hi Don / Steve / Mark,
My feeling is that the mussullah is the original species of the kaveri and is now becoming something of a rareity, and the kudhree (blue fin) is the one that has been more recently introduced.
The records from the Tata power Lonavala will confirm the same if closely investigated. I have sent these links to you Mark, and hope you will have a better understanding of how the changes on the Kaveri took place.

To me, the mussullah is the larger of the 2 species, and the kudhree grows to 60% the size of the mussullah.

I don't recall seeing a single blue fin or having seen a picture of a bluefin in the Kaveri prior to 2000.

Although i know that the species cannot be distinguished by the colour of the fish alone, but there is a distinct difference in the look of both species, plus the largest bluefin that i have seen on picture is the one that Darren caught, and this fish although almost black in colour, to me this fish also looks like a kudhree, and it certainly isin't the biggest fish to come out of the Kaveri. I have pictures of fish in the 90+ category that were taken in the 80's and 90's, and none of them had the colouration and look of the kudhree.

Just as the kudhree comes in shades of silver, black, gold, copper, bronze, with blueish fins, so does the mussullah come in shades of gold, silver, black, green, and even copper with orange or white coloured fins depending on the colour of the body of the fish. The gold and copper having orange coloured fins, while the silver had white fins, and the black grey fins.
There is also a difference in the two fish if 2 of the same size are compared, with the kudhree having less of a hump than the mussullah, and in some cases i have seen a drooping tail in the kudhree, which i have never seen in the mussullah.

Both seem to have around 25 scales along the lateral line, but i have not got into measuring the head of the fish with relation to its girth, nor have i made a study of the dorsal or anal fins, but here too there is a difference in both species, with the mussullah having more rounded anal fins.

The mussullah are still breeding in the kaveri, but much slower than the kudhree.
Mind you, I could be wrong

Mark, Steve and Owen,

The presence of two species of Mahseer in the Kaveri was an established fact for many decades and long before any one of us stated fishing on the river.

I have a picture of a 96 pound mahseer which Mark would identify as a tor khudree. A friend has one of a similar large mahseer which again would be called tor khudree and a 77 pounder was landed in my presence in 1981. All three fish are larger than the ones described by Owen. I mentioned in one of my earlier postings and in response to Owen's query I released about 5000 fingerlings in 1975 which WASI obtained from the Lonavala nursery with the help of Mr Kulkarni who was then incharge of the TATA project. About 20 years later mahseer grey in colour,not silver like the khudree, and stumpy were caught, photos with WASI, I was convinced these were the ones introduced by me. Could these be the dwarf mahseer mentioned by Mark in his key.

Owen informs us that fingerlings again were introduced into the Kaveri in 1997 and we presume these are the 'blue fin'. I now recall Col Naidu, WASI administrater at that time, informing me, could be in 1997, that hw would be visiting the mahseer nursery in the Harangi reservoir. The Harangi River joins the Kaveri below the dam. The original fingerlings for the nursery were brought from Lonavala. This solves the mystery of the presence of the blue fin. Are these too the dwarf mahseer?

I have read Marks's key over and over again and convinced that we don't have to look further than the Kaveri for the tor khudree or Deccan mahseer.

You must see the picture of the 96 pounder to be convinced, but the angler has requested me not to part with the photo and no copies.

Don

From my limited Cauvery experience, there appear to be two bsic types:
Humpbacked - 4 barbules pluss a chin barbule (beard) and a distict humpback in larger specimins.
Bluefin - 2 barbules, no beard and a barrel shaped body.

Does this tie in with other peoples experience ?

Hi Guys,

I have lost the links to this article by Dr KC Jayaram but i do have a copy on my notebook that i am pasteing here for your reference.
It tells about the difference in size of the 2 species and the dominance of the male over the female in the mussullah.
There is a lot of stuff out there available to us, as well as the pictures that we all have, which can be used for this study.
Some guys on the forum wanted to know why taking pictures of fish were necessary, well i think they can be put to very good use.

Other interesting info available from the Tata Power Mahseer breeding program, is that the Trans world fishing team and Paul Boote who fished the Kaveri caught the Kudhree species.
I own a copy of both these books, and there is no reference to the scientific name of the species caught by either team, so were the people from Tata power going by pictures in the book alone ?

One more glaring fact is that the scientific community talks about the difference in species (mussullah & kudhree) but i cannot find a single picture anywhere that says this is this and that is that.

Regards
Owen

Thrust Area : Conservation and Enhancement of biological diversity
Title of the Project : STATE-OF-ART OF THREE ENDANGERED MAHSEER FISHES OF SOUTH
INDIA
Key words : Endangered, Mahseer fishes, bionomics
The project was taken up by the awardee to prepare the State-of-Art report for
endangered mahseer, Tor curmuca, T. mussullah and T. neilli in the Deccan
region.
The project was based on the premise that:
Depletion of the Decan mahseer is for habitat shrinkage and destruction.
Taxonomic confusions of the species are required to be removed, and
Distribution of the species are mainly in Western Ghats and Karnataka State
Fisheries Department is taking care of them.
Till now Tor mussullah was considered as one and the same as the widely spread
and common Tor khudree. The generic name was changed by many workers. The
present work has clerly shown that Tor mussullah is a distinct species and
separate from Tor khudree by definite meristic and non-meristic characters
besides scale structue and vertebral count x-ray studies. The nomenclatural
status has also been clarified. During the period under fellowship, the
eco-status of the threatened species Tor mussullah has been thoroughly analysed
and its position clarified through extensive field surveys, observation and
analysis. The possible geographical location have also been delineated.
By intensive and extensive surveys of Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra the
habitat preferences of the fishes have been fixed up. It is seen that whereas
Tor Khudree is widely spread Tor mussullah and Tor curmuca are confined to
micro-habitats in isolated pockets of rocky streams. The population size of Tor
mussullah is small, fragmentary unlike of Tor khudree. The sex and size ratios
of the two species also reflect that whereas Tor mussullah reaches a size of
about 175 cm, with males dominating, Tor khudree attains a size of 60 cm lesser
than Tor mussullah with females in plenty. Considering the Eco status, it is
tentatively concluded that Tor mussullah can be categorised as Rare under the
IUCN classification. It is likely to slip into the Vulnerable category soon
unless protective measures are taken early.
The Fish Farm maintained by the Tata Electric Company at Lonavla is doing
service in artificially hatching mahseer fishes, rearing them and propagating
them into different habitats. The fish congregations seen in Karnataka are all
fishes from fingerlings obtained from Lonavla, excepting the one at Sringeri.
The congregation at Sringeri comprises of large sized fishes which must have
grown in the Tunga river having attained the record size in the course of
several years. The breeding grounds in Tunga is not yet known and arrangements
have been made with the Karnataka State Fisheries Department to look into this
problem in October 1997. Tagging experiments are also being planned. The study
of these congregations has revealed that along with Tor khudree, Tor mussullah
has also been stocked inadvertently not really knowing their true identity and
value. It has been suggested to the Fish Farm Authority to breed the two fish
Tor khudree and Tor mussullah separately and rear the stock so that pure strains
of each species are obtained and also to note any difference in their bionomics.

During the project tenure:
Confusion has been removed and exact taxonomic status of T. mussullah has
been discussed
Validity of the new nomenclature for T. curmuca has been accepted, though
Confusion about T. neilli has not been solved.
Locating endangered and therefore rare mahseer species is a difficult
task and the efforts of the awardee in this direction are timely & satisfactory.

Period of Study : 1995-1998
__________________________________________________________________
Name of the Awardee : Dr. K. C. Jayaram, Madras Science Foundation, Chennai

Hi Owen, Mark and Steve,

Very interesting conclusions drawn by Mark and Jayaram. It is obvious Owen and I are talking of two different species of Mahseer. If what Owen has described as the tor khudree and the fingerlings I obtained from the TATA Lonavala and released into the Kaveri in 1975 are tor khudree they are the same fish. Apparently, Owen has not the seen the fish I have described. All the fish I have mentioned were taken in a stretch of the Kaveri from Mossilihala to less than a kilometer downstream from Galliborai, even those taken regularly by Mr Radcliffe of Ooty. Unlike the large mussullah these, even the large ones take a spoon.

So Mark, we have a taxing and interesting job on hand. The three of us have a lot oc chatting to do.

Don

Hi Owen,

You have not given me your e-mail id. Here is mine: donsmith@dataone.in and phones: 9845173984, 65590391, 25560738.

Have you been successful recently? Syddon is coming down for a weekend and we will meet in Chennai to troll for the whole of 11th, weather permitting. Info. is very promising, large leatherjackets and kingfish and the odd sailfish. The local commercial fishermen troll with handlines and one boat lost all of one of one of its lines, eventually snapped at the point it was tied to in the boat. My friend thinks it could be a large sail or marlin in excess of 100kgs. My experience with billfish is they get airborne when hooked, but surprisingly the locals have not mentioned this habit till now. Could have been a very large kingfish (seer).

We will also surf fish for bekti, GTs and barracuda at the mouth of the Kovalam River, 10th evening and with live tiger prawn 12th morning off the Ennore harbour, Chennai. Activity reported at both locations.

You are always welcome to join me. Its as exciting as fishing for mahseer or even more. I have plans for Goa in April. I have yet to give my friend dates. Join me?

Don

Hi Don,
I had sent you a PM with my mail id some days back, however it is owen_bosen@yahoo.com.
Posting pictures of 3 fish, please tell me which species you think they are.
All 3 were caught at Moslehalla.
Regards
Owen

Hi Owen,

The second one looks like the mahseer I have been referring to. The fist and third look like tor musullah.

The angler who landed the 96 pounder, a copy of the picture in my possession, has fished a lot on the Kaveri and very observant and has mentioned the difference between the two species. His fish was taken long before the large grey ones were caught which I presume are the grown up fingerlings I planted which are now being identified as tor khudree.

I started fishing on the Kaveri in 1972 and mahseer taken mainly by Radcliffe on spoon or plug and by locals below the gorge with live carp kept in earthen pots filled with water were of the slimmer silver type. I saw tor musullah for the first time after 1974 when WASI took over the protection of what old anglers called 'mahseer waters and tor musullah returned to them. The'mahseer which returned to Forbes Sagar in 1975 after two IGPs implemented the Mysore Fisheries Act, 1905 and stopped dynamiting were all tor musullah and were colour variants as desribed by you.

I trust the above information is helpful and to other members as well.

Don

Hi Don,
The second and third fish were identical except that the smaller was a silver of 48lbs, and the larger 86lbs. The smaller was taken on Ragi and the larger taken on a 4" silver spoon.
Both were good fighters, but i have to say that the smaller (48lbs) fought like hell. The larger was caught in 1990 and the smaller in 1991.
Funnily the smallest of the 3 was caught on the same trip in Feb 1991 by my brother Robert on a light rod, it was a small fish, but fought like a demon. I reckon all 3 are tor mussullah.
I have some pix of even bigger fish caught around the same time, which i cannot post for obvious reasons, but will be happy to sit and discuss with you about them.
What would you say about the fish below Don.

Regards
Owen

Hi Owen, You could be right. You are testing me which I believe is not right. What does it prove? I can assure you I am not attempting to prove you wrong. All I am saying is and a view supported by anglers of my time there are two species in the Kaveri and the second one is slimmer and as heavy as the largest tor musullah caught since 1974. What is the identity of this mahseer and that is the sole object of my postings on the subject. In no way does it discredit you.

Don

Hey Guys!

this was the most serious thread on the entire site. i thought it was going somewhere good.....

Peace love and harmony.

Hi Don!
Don't mistake me, no tests mate, you are more senior to me on the kaveri. I am very keen to learn more from your experiences and get to the bottom of this. Please tell me what you think the fish in the last picture i posted ? As you can see it has blue fins, and is found up and down the length of the kaveri today including Wasi lake, forbes sagar etc. This fish was not in the main kaveri 7 years back, or atleast does not show up in the numerous pictures of fish taken from the kaveri that i have in my collection.
Regards
Owen

Hey OMO ,, thats a mahseer Fish, Glove and Our Money mate

Hi guys,

I always came across two types of masheer in thr rivers of kerala. The stouter blue finned one and the slender orange or lighter finned ones. But I must declare that when I hook one I always enjoy the experience and never discriminate among the two . Both earn my respects after all they are fish and game fish at that.

Well lets conserve the fish in the cavery blue,black et all so that we can continue enjoying the sport.
Conservation is good but fishing is more enjoyable.


Tight lines,

Jeen

No discrimination. Black, white, blue, red, orange, yellow or brown.

Peace on Earth..... and in the water.

PS ; everyone is allowed to take out the Telapia and Magur.