INDIANANGLER

Hello friends,

Couple of days back I and Ali while discussing angling locations in and around Mumbai, decided to head towards Nasik (200 km from Mumbai) to check few locations, meet family & friends and attend the Independence day party at the army's Temple Hill Institute at Deolali..

We left Mumbai in the late afternoon on 14th on an exciting but back breaking journey to Deolali (road was littered with potholes).

At deolali, we received a warm welcome at the beautiful army bungalow by Mrs. Javed (Mr. Javed is a high ranking Army officer & Ali's brother-in-law).

The decided program was to;
I'll go to meet an old friend in nasik
we all meet at the party at the army institute at by 9.00 Pm (I was late as usual but it was a fantastic experience )
wakeup early and leave by 6.00 Am sharp to Barve dam with Ali's friend Ashish.

Ashish arived sharp at 6.00am & we left for a wrongly informed "only 9 Km, 15 min" journey to barve dam.. it turned out to be 22 Km, one hour cross country road journey (the road looked like it was indiscriminately shelled by nearby artillery school)

The water at barve dam was very high & brown in colour with local fishermen telling us to come back once the water level goes down & the color improves if we seriously want to catch fish.. (was not an encouraging news as I was almost awake the whole night dreaming about my first murrel).

We decided no matter what the local wisdom says we will check couple of locations around the dam for murrel waters. In the process we walked for miles and made 100's of castings.

It was not a easy thing to do as we had to walk through ankle deep mud with all the gear.. on top of it, it was raining, very windy & cold, lots of snags and no sight of any fish activity..

Then, as Ali was trying to free his snagged spoon, I thought I'll make one last cast before I go and try to help him and then we head on to another location.
As I was reeling in my 4 no. mepps, at a distance of 7 to 8 feet from the banks, I saw a something dark coming in after the spinner, I knew it was a murrel, with a big open mouth & dark eyes the murrel looked real greedy, but so was I looking at a fish I wanted to catch for a long time.

the murrel took the spinner and turned to go back in to the deep, having heard stories of murrel spitting back spinners there was a no second chance from me, on a tight drag it was pulled out in seconds, but every moment of it will be remembered for long.

A nice 2 kg something murrel, my first.

The place should be a lure fishing heaven for murrel & Wallago attu once the waters are clear and we have promised fishes that we'll be back

The rest of the day was spent waking some more miles in mud, making few more hundred casting, getting wet, and in the process we enjoyed exploring a part of our beautiful country ..

Santosh

Here are some pics..


On way to nasik


Ali & Ashish at the dam wall


spoon casting


Murrel on Mepps No. 4




Lunch break


Dam history

Nice pics

Super! Good stuff Santo, the last pic is really awesome.

Bops

Thanks Bops & Apoo..

Santosh! great fish.

It's always great to catch something when the locals tell you you won't. keep on proving them wrong mate.

Hi Santosh,

I enjoyed every bit of your trip report..supported well by snaps too..

Hope you land in more catches next time around.


Arokiaraj

Santosh,

The pic showing the murrel on the mepps looks like the fish was caught in a paddy field !!!???

Gosh, guys - post monsoon, count me in too, for your trips.

Congrats on your first murrel Santosh!
Regards,
Yaj.

Thanks Yaj

good show!!! next time you are up in delhi, let us know and we'll take you to the pump house for some serious murral action!!!

Pics and yr trip are both out of the world........
grt catch...i m really hooked now

Once again congratulation to Santosh. Now this fishing trip came out of the blue and the common wisdom was that this is not the time to try fishing in these dams due to increased water level and muddy water but we decided to give it a try and was it not a memorable trip. The breathtaking beauty and greenery of the landscape, The cloud covered mountain, the sound of cascading water of the rapids and above all the thrill of anticipation of getting a bite was enough to make any trip successful. The beauty of a maral caught by Santosh was like icing on the cake. By the way this dam is also known by the name of Dharna Dam and the second dam (Last Picture) is Mukhna Dam. There are about 18 fishing spot near Nasik and we plan to fish all of them. We have also decided to compile information of these spots for the benefit of other members of this forum. We will try to post all the information collected by us as soon as possible.

Regards,

Ali..

Hi Santosh

Nice going, I was just thinking about all the writers, with anecdotes etc, here on the forum,
We can actually put a book together with the pics off course!!!
I'd say what fun

Cheer Mate!!
keep it going
the last time I went to Deolali was in 72 to Barnes School for an inter school football tournament, went and saw "Bobby" the film at the local talkies there.
Next was in 78 for the NCC camp at the artillery camp there, so it brings back a whole lot of memories.
Cheers again

Great going santosh,


Some of the pics are breath taking particularly the one at the end

Santosh and Ali,
Bash on regardless.Atleast you guys have the time and the lakes to fish, so keep on doin it.
Congrats Santosh on your first Murral and some good snaps.
Best
Axx

Good show Santosh n Ali...

I can't open images. An want to know which spinner or spoon was good for you . Like which type of spoon is
Better