Yes Pathwadi ....Madh main rock Bobster ... its called Pathwadi at least that what i call it ... youve been away too long ...
Since im on this thread .. i will tell you what happened to me once many years ago when I was young , Jobless and fishing day and night
I had gone out on one of the Chimbai boats as they were going to pull up the nets which they had left soaking overnight for Small Prawns , jowla and Kardi , Since the whole trip was to take around 5 hours and we were leaving at 7 am we would be back at around lunch time . So I packed my DAM telescopic Mitchell 486 reel and some spoons ( no rapallas @ that time ) and went with the Koli's . We travelled around 5 nautical miles offshore and then the guys started hauling up the nets , You know the ones where the stuff gets all collected at the end . They call these nets Dholl
They started filling the baskets and when they usually do this a lot of the smaller stuff slips through the nets in a cloud of small prawns etc ,
I was at the back of the boat leaning on the frame where the engine sits and started flipping out an Ivan trusted daly spoon into this cloud that was slipping out and moving as the boat kept moving out .. I must have been doing that for around 15 to 20 minutes and was getting a bit bored .. So as usual in my mind I said 'last cast " . What happend next was incredible and has been part of my memories till date
Suddenly out of nowehere was this large dorsal fin picking up speed behind the spoon . As it neared the boat - remember i was just flipping out the spoon maybe 10 metres from the boat - I see this huge Rawas - with its mouth wide open overtake the spoon and go for the head of the spoon - One second he was there the next second this big swirl as he took the spoon at the head and turned away from the boat and was gone . I was fishing with Daiwa sealine .40 - 30 lb line on a large Mitchell 486 closed face reel . The reel was screaming at a high pitch - you know the old Mitchell Drags ---with the speed that the fish took off . I braced myself against the engine housing and kept looking at the line going out - The fish spooled me in 2 minutes - without stopping once in his run - When I knew that the fish was not going to stop and looked at the reel emptying - I took a last chance and went for the drag - I tried tightening a bit but the fish just kept runnning in a straight line wihtout a pause - one more turn ion the Drag knob and the line cracked like a gun shot - Then all was quiet - You culd only hear the water lapping at the boat - I turned around and there were the Koli fishermen - all standing -and looking in the direction of where the fish ran - Apparently they too saw the fish taking the spoon whilst they were pulling up the nets - and hearing the Mitchell Sing as only a Mitchell reel can - were watching the fun
The Kolis say it was a huge Dhara - and they estimate the wieght to be 25 kgs + , but without trying to be dramatic - ive seen rawas caught in the 21- 22 lb range both in the water and also after being landed but this was huge - it looked huge in the water so maybe not a 25 that the Koli guys say but definately around the 18 - 20 kg mark according to my estimate .
But in the end it was not how big the fish was but the experience has been one of my favourites -seeing this huge threadfin chase the spoon - take it at the head in classic threadfin fashion . the swirl as he turned and disappeared - and yes ... how small I really was with a large Dam telescopic rod - A mitchell 486 reel with 350 metres of line --- and hope .. that a fish like that still had teh chance of getting away
Life is Good
Tight lines