INDIANANGLER

Has anyone landed this fish on the west coast.
Giant African Threadfin (Polydactylus quadrifilis)
The threadfins are an unusual group of elongate, predatory fishes that use a cluster of tassel-like fins, attached to the base of the pectoral fins, as feelers in the rough surf and murky water where they prefer to hunt various small fish and crustacean prey. They take lures, especially oversize plastic tailed jigs, medium-sized deep-diving swimming plugs as well as various natural baits. Although they do penetrate a long way upstream, they are not usually found in the lagoon in targetable numbers and are usually fished for in the lagoon mouth over low tide periods and/or in the surf zone. Giant threadfin are powerful, hard and fast-running fish that regularly attain weights of 30kgs and grow to more than 50kgs

Hi Niel,

I saw 2 of these monster fish in Bazzar Road Market they were about 6' in length and about 60 - 80" (guess) circumfrence at the broadest part. I have been asking about these buggers for a while but have got very inconclusive answers. I do not know if the fish I saw were Polydactylus quadrifilis or just massive Eleutheronema tetradctylum

But heres pictures of the Giant African Threadifn Polydactylus quadrifilis for those who want to see:

WOW
thats monster of a fish......
and a real beauty.............

I have had info from the local fishermen ,who call it DHARA..........found further north of Mumbai,but guess being fast fish you wont see many in the market.

Dhara is a bit of an enigma...initially Dhara was thought by most local rod and reel anglers to be the King Threadfin what the aussies get...then after investigating further it turned out to be a larger Ravas (Blue Threadfin) with a dark back on further and more questioning several fishermen (kolies) from differenc locales I realized that they were reffering to the large white catfish..

Dhara is certainly not Giant Threadfin mate and do not listen to most of these fishermen locals, a lot of these guys do not know their ass from their elbow.

I recall when I was chasing Marlin and Sailfish...the local fishermen were so confused which one was which and to give you a good example..they called Sailfish "Tar Masha" and Marlin "More (as in peacock) Masha" when clearly it should be vise versa...

Ask them the difference between surmai and towar and see what they tell you

Are many of these fish caught on pier /jetty fishingor on shore fishing?

Where???

Bobby, he's asking a question.

Thanks Bops..

We normally catch them Spinning silver on spoons or poppers in the surf and estuaries.

However you can also catch them bottom feeding with crab or mullet. In Hong Kong they are only caught bottom fishing. I have always caught them top water. In Bombay we catch them spinning.

Infact they are very rarely caught anymore so perhaps we need to change tatics, last I heard that 2 were caught down south on mullet.

I would like to know when IA members caught their last Ravas? Please Oblige With Replies Guys...

Regards,

Bobby

Vishal caught one spinning at pathwadi a month back . 10 lbs

Pathwadi??

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

You should have let the fish spool you..mate and perhaps you would have caught it, may be you would have solved the Dhara enigma... By the way the two 26 pounders that my bro bims caught from, (yes, ding!) Pathwadi were called Dhara by the kolies then...I have come to the conclusion that Dhara is any large fish with whiskers/barbles.

Going on the same norm. These Kolis have common names for fish based on size... example, a small Spanish Mackrel is a Surmai and they call all other small Scomberomorus the large Spanish Mackrel are called To-war (bambo To-war) as in "up there as high as a bamboo" based on how high this fish sometimes jumps when feeding or evading predators. The dinteresting thing is that only the Scomberomorus Cavala and Scomberomorus Commerson grow to those larges sizes, these fish are called "Towar" when they start to exceed 8 - 10 Kgs.