INDIANANGLER

There is a popular idea that all Middle Eastern airlines are the bees knees. Well having flown with Etihad, I can confidently say that this is a misconception.

The flight from Heathrow to Abu Dhabi was marred by the internal temperature of the aircraft which was something like 30 degrees and dry as hell. Like many other victims/passangers, I was quickly stripped off to the minimum of clothing and constantly drinking and nipping off to the toilets to run cold water over face wrists and arms to try to cool down a bit. Fortunatly, we eventually arrived at Abu Dhabi airport (looking suspiciously like "Moss Isley" from the Star Wars movies) and got out of the plane to be greated by the relative cool of the desert morning - who would have thought you'd feel the pleasant cool when arriving in the Middle East ?

In full accordance with international guidelines, the airport terminal was emblazoned with signs staying that smoking was prohibited except in designated areas. Unfortunatly, the effect of this was slightly marred by the fact that the designated areas included all the food stalls and coffee shops and there was no ventilation at all. The resultant haze of smoke, sounds of coughing westerners and hords of exotically dressed people (almost as exotic as Saltley in Birmingham !) reinforced the "Moss Isley" feel of the place and I was constantly expecting to see some wee fella jump up and shout "Ootinii" from a darkened corner.


The onward flight to Mumbai was delayed by 2 hours so we arrived after the last connecting flight to Goa had gone. Fortunatly, I'd realised it would be close cut and so hadn't pre-booked the connecting flight. With flying out of the question, a prepaid taxi took me to the long distance bus stand and I soon had an overnight bus ticket booked to Mapusa in north Goa and after a two hour wait, I started the final 10 hours of the journey out.

After setting out from home at 13:00 on Saturday, I finally rolled into Arambol at 08:00 on Monday morning in dire need of a wash and a bed.


Whilst having a coffee with my bags besides me, Scott (Worldfisher) rolled up in the restrurant and whilst I admit to a quick (manley) hug and handshake, I decided to decline the "and kisses" (and indeed the plural "hugs") suggested by his mother for when I met him.

He was looking well but considerably skinnier than he was when we last met, but cycling 15000km will do that to a body.

Now, general guidance on jet lag is to adopt a sleeping pattern appropriate to your destination as soon as possile after your arrival. Unfortunatly, I decided to forgoe this basic biological acclimatisation process and slept through the middle of the day and went out fishing between 23:00 and 3 in the morning on the day of my arrival.

We've been pretty much noctournal ever since !


The locals haven't been catching a lot of late but Scott and I landed three fish each on the first night with an average weight of 6kgs each. I also lost a huge fish that just ran and ran before jumping and throwing the hooks.

The next night, I only had one but Scott landed four and the sizes were bigger with fish averaging 7.5kg's.

We went out again on Wednesday night but were a little concerned about the reception we might recieve after doing so much better than the locals the previous two nights, so we fished another location and had a nice Mangrove Jack each and I had another Barramundi of 8kg's.


There was no fishing for me last night 'cause I had a stomach bug. I had 8 hours of misery starting out with some impressive stomach pains and then it was gone, which suggests that it was a virus rather than the result of eating something dodgy. Unfortunatly, being sick also meant that I missed the jam session at Loekies bar but I could hear it from my room. It sounded like I missed a really good one with a couple of guys playing some first rate blues at the start and then more of a mixed bag a bit latter on. Obviously, I need to track down the guys who were playing and make sure I'm there when they play next. I've also caught a Bindoo Babas gig and Prana, Assi and Matura were on good form. In short, the music scene here is as good as ever.


One thing that has changed in the last 12 months is the pantheon of hippydom. In addition to the familiar Jesus/Charley Mansun hippy, the Cyberpunk hippy and the Sadhu wanabee hippy, there is now the Pirate hippy, repleate with silly beared and mustoush (I know, people in glass houses etc), appropriate piraty clothes and whitty banter and even a tricorned hat !

Disney has a lot to anwser for !


In a few days Scott and I are planning a trip up the coast to Ganpatapule in Maharashtra for a bit of shark fishing from the beach. Expect tails of toothy beasties soon.

Hi Ken,

I am leaving for Ganpatipule tonight with buddies from IA & will be there till Sunday afternoon.

Will carry a beach casting rod.

Santosh

Hi, Ken,
That was a good Travel Report! In the night, did You do bait casting for Bottom fishing or you did spinning with lures?

Waiting for your pics.

Regards,


Arun

Santosh. I rather doubt that we'll get there before you leave but if we manage to make our arrangements quicker than expected, keep an eye out for a pair of fishing Gorrah's and say hi !

Arun. So far, all of our fishing has been done with lures from the beach. Small rubber shads and minnow lures in the 5 - 6' range have been doing the business.
One thing that I made a point of bringing was sinking/suspending shallow running minnows. The extra density lets us get a small lure to maximum distance and this does seem to be paying off.
We have a few more new tricks in the arsenal for this trip and will share them as and when they can be shown to work in relation to Indian species and conditions - but it's early days yet.

I'll look around..

Great log Captain. May the force be with you.

Thanks very much Ken for the reply. I have never done spinning in night, but on coming Monday and Tuesday, I am planning to try it at Mandwa, near Alibaug. There would be a Full Moon on Tuesday, 22nd Jan. So I hope I would get hits, using your method.

Regards,

Arun

well done ken. if you do land a shark ( and i hope you get a beauty), give it a little snog from me- will you?

any pics buddy?

good luck.
vikram

Vikram. The sort of sharks we'll be after can be seen in Scott's blog.
http://./

I might be tempted to give one a little kiss but tongues are out of the question.

Best of luck with the lure chucking Arun. I hope you get a monster.

God damn it Ken... you got all the luck and skill.

boss, dont patronize him too much. seems like hes having everyones share of fish and fun as it is.

Hi Ken,,

Sounds like a perfect start to a great trip ( apart from that air trip).

Looking forward to some good reports and pics.


Jeen

Just prior to leaving for Ganapatipule, one of the restraurants that we suplied some fish to (Lamwellas in Arambol if anyone fancies a good feed when they visit) cooked us a free meal. To say that it was good would be a major understatement...
Think a starter of raw fish caspachio with salad followed by pan fried mangrove jack with a sauce of herbs, garlic and lemon zest served with fondant potatos and a side salad.
It goes without saying that the fish for food exchange programe will be extended.

We're now back from our little side trip and Wow! what a stunning place Ganapatipule is. Clean sand, clear blue sea and a mixture of casurinas and coconut palms lining the beach.
Three of us shared a 4 man permanent tent for 600 Rs per night and we had access to a restraunt that would happily cook our catch for dinner.
Unfortunatly, there had been a bit of a storm prior to out arrival so there were big waves, a strong current and lots of sea weed in the water. This made soaking big baits for the sharks almost impossible but I still managed to catch something every day we were there.
First night, I bagged a Barramundi (locally known as "Chanak") from the mouth of the little river that runs in at the north of the resort and Scott got bitten off by something that sheared through his 50lb flouro leader in a second. As we were fishing at night in shallow water, it was almost certainly a shark grabbing the lure and making short work of it.

After that first night, I had a coulple of Pikey sea bream ("Palu"), with the biggest going about three and a half pounds, a Sandshark (no idea of the local name) of about 8 pounds and a couple of catfish.
Catfish are henceforth to be refered to as "Squeekers" - it's what they do !
Scott also had some nice Mangrove Jacks ("Tambuche") and an as yet unidentified Lucjanid that I'll have to look up when I get home.

No proper sharks but a very worthwhile side trip and a place that I suspect I'll return to at some point in the future. It's certanly an option for breaking up a trip from Goa to Mumbai into two rather pleasant train rides and a stopover on the beach.

Tonight, there is a Jam session on at the local bar and a full moon to fish by after, hey, it doesn't get much better.

Very Happening !

squeekers? squeeking fish? tell me more ken !! what sort of bait and method did you use for the catfish?
----------------------------------------------
just ran google on fish sounds and found some fascinating stuff. theres alos an audio clip of the sound produced by a sea catfish.

http://www.dosits.org/animals/produce/1f.htm

ken, the catfish was probably telling you to bugger off from its territory .. or else ...

Hey Ken I hope you made a good trip to Ganapatiphule I just posted a trip report of our own hope to see yours soon. great going and a very good start just on your arrival wish you all the best and happy hunting in coming days as Arun says I would be trying same lure fishing in the night soon I don't have any rubber shads or any other species would regular Rapala lure help would appreciate a suggestion
with best
Rajat

Vikram mate. The catfish are just taking chunks of makerel (Bangra) fished on simple patternoster and running ledger rigs. Nothing complicated about it and they're definatly in the unwanted byecatch category.
Even fish of a few grams will grab a decent sized bait and force it hook and all into it's mouth.
When you catch one, it's just a case of grabbing the hook with pliers and shaking it back into the sea.
About the only thing less welcome than the catfish are the moray eels.

Rajat. Most of our fish for this trip have been falling for shallow running minnow lures either made by Bomber. Just make sure you upgrade the hooks. Rapala's are fine and although I'm not a fan of their lures, something like the shallow running version of the Husky Jerk shoud do the job for you.
If you're fishing at night, just make sure you know the mark well and stay safe.

We fished again last night and Scott well and truely beat me. He had a spectacular barramundi but I really should give him the chance to post details about just how big it was himself rather than spoiling the suprise. Me, i just had the one MJ but kept getting frustrating little taps that I'm going to have to learn how to turn into more fish.

Hi Ken,

Nice adventure and nice catch. I have one question for you. I have some fluroscent sticks for my float. If I tape/ Glue one with my lure when I am night fishing or with the deep diver, when trolling- will it inhance the chance of hit. One more thing, I am designing one long cast zero weight leader by adding thermocole balls of 5mm size throughout the length of the wire and adding weight on either end and middle of the wire so as the buoyancy of thermocole in water and the weight added are in equilibrium. I know that I can increase my cast by using this method but will this leader spook the fish.

And best of luck for your further trip.


Regards,

Ali

Ali.
I've not tried chemical light sticks but glow in the dark shads produced no strikes at all when we tried them, when casting from the shore.
That said, I know they are used by some deep water boat anglers when bait fishing so you might as well try it and evaluate it for yourself.

Not sure about your leeder idea. It's a bit hard to visulise what you mean but generally, less is more when it comes to trolling leaders. For this reason, I'm a big fan of single strand wire for satwater trolling. Of course, Mighty Marlin is your man for this kind of thing 'cause he's much moreexperienced than I am.

Thanks a ton Ken for the note
keep hooking

Sounds Great Trip
Keep it up

I feel a calling. Maybe an itch. It has a name and it's name "Mahseer".
I think maybe it's time to start making some plans to visit the Cauvery.

Here in Arambol, I can induldge in reiki, crystal healing, at least six different flavours of yoga, tai-chi, colon clensing (sounds messy! - and if you're not suposed to drink the local water, should you be letting someone push it up up your bum ?), satsang, breathing workshops, emotional release therapy, Tibetan body pulsing (whatever that is), chakra balancing, colour therapy and my personal favorite; "tachyon healing" .....amongst many others.
I can also find some dreadlocked hippy on every corner who is not only keen to tell me about the benefits of a raw, organic, vegan diet, they'll also happily sell me one as well.

I've also had a conversation with an astonishingly pretty young lady with a very strange accent who told be in all sincerity that she believes in "positive energy".
Apparently, there was some unnamed Japanese fella' who spent an hour telling a cup of water how much he hates it and swearing at it and then he put it in a freezer and taking photographs as the water froze.
He then got another cup of water and said nice things to it and told it how much he loved it for an hour before freezing that one and photographing it as the ice crystals formed.
Amazingly, the crystals were different and that proves the existance of "Positive energy"...apparently....and as we're made of 90% water, it's bound to have an effect on us....
I did ask about consistecy of results, repeatability, peer review of results and the nature of "positive energy" but predictably, I was greated with a blank stare.

Undetered by my obvious skepticism, she then told me that her father had had a lump that was "probably cancer" cured by a faith healer.
Suitably impressed, I asked where the lump was and wasn't exactly shocked to hear that it was on a tendon.
The conversation went of at a tangent about herbalism (Some amazing folk knowledge mixed with a lot of BS) and came back to me saying that the conditions with the highest number of folk remedies were those that tend to resolve sponaneously like warts and ganglions (lumps on tendons) precicely because they will at some point resolve and Johnny charlatan can claim a success - think bash it with a bible of rub liver on it and burry the liver in the garden.
Was there a recognition of the fact that I was refering to a lump that was "probably cancer" ?
There was not...

To top it all, I spoke to "pirate hippy" and despite his home counties accent, he goes by the name of "Gopall". Oh dear !!!!

As a result of all this, my personal B---S---o'meter is currently maxed out and off the scale and I think it's time for an injection of fishing related normality and an associated trip to the hills in search of stunning senery, wildlife and big fish.
Last time out, I managed to sneak up on spotted deer in a coracle and had five wild elephants come down for a drink on the far bank of the river whilst I was preparing dinner. The cream on the cake would be to see one of the big cats. There are leopards about and as of last year tigers have apparently taken up residence in the forrest on the far bank of the river wich is conected to a national park by a wooded coridor. Oh and snakes, lots and lots of snakes, from the fiesty little 2 footer that we had in camp on the fist visit to the big 8 foot beasties that lurk in the rice fields.

My only concern is the weather up in the hills. It's unseasonably clear and cool here at the moment with people going out in jeans and a jacket at night and me and Scott having to wear a fleece on the beach at night (OK so we're in shorts and bare feet but it's still cooler than normal) so it might be distinctly cold in the mountains.

When I'm out and about, I'll be away from such luxuries as electricity, running water and basic sanitation so the internet will also be off the agenda.
No doubt I'll get in touch from town but it might be infrequent.

Can't wait !

yoga (yog rather)... ah that old chestnut. a friend of mine heavy into the stuff taught me to stand on my head. wouldnt swear by its benefits but is great fun , not to mention a smashing party trick.

if by the mountains you mean going up north - i wish you well. spoke to my grandad in dehradun a couple of days ago and he says its pretty cold up there.

good luck mate
vikram

The mountains were the Western Ghats and the destination was the upper Cauvery.
On arrival, the water levels were quite high and here was a distinct murky cast to the water.
Things didn't look good for lure fishing but things appeared to have brightened up when my rod slammed over just 25 minutes into the first coracle trip. At 15lbs, it wasn't a huge fish but it was very welcome all the same.
Unfortunatly, the first fish wasn't a harbinger of great things to come and we struggled to get fish to respond to lures throughout our 10 day stay. I had the best fish to a lure at about 18lb but bait appeared to be the only way to go.
Scott (Worldfisher) had fish to 25lb on raggi after we were shown an alternative and much better way to prepare the stuff that leaves the bait soft enough to pull a hook through on the strike.
Not being a keen bait angler, I decided to call it a day after day 10 but Scott is still there trying for the big one. I will hopefully be making a return visit in March when the clarity improves and the fish will hopefully feel a little more inclined to chase lures.

One frustrating aspect of the trip was my ongoing failure to hook a mahseer on the fly. One afternoon, I had five mahseer and a murrel grab the flies only to have every single strike fail to hookup. Nonetheless, my under mango tre casting technique is now much improved and hopefully, I'll hook one next tine.

great going ken .. good to here from you.

Hi Ken,

What flies (type, color, & size) did you try ?

Also, what type of flyline (sinking, floating) did you fish ?

I am trying to understand what techniques did not work


tight lines

Makarand

I was using a #9 weight weight forward sink tip line with a short leader tipped off with 50cm of flouro. The flies were 4" minow immitations that look astonisingly like a danio/chilwa but being salt water flies, they have a very strong short shank hook at the front and the fish tended to grab the back of the fly and miss the point. The murrel (and a couple of mahseer) hit a classic frog style bass bug fished right into the bank and constantly lifted and but back (pike style) on a short line as the coracle drifted.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get those same flies into positions where the bigger fish will engulf them when the river clears a bit.

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the info.

Looks like I need to tie flies for Mahseer, with tandem hooks.


tight lines

Makarand

27.03.08
Well, my two week blow out in Sri Lanka got completely wrecked by the nice people at Lloyds TSB.
I've had problems with my ATM card since arriving in India and despite several very expensive calls to call centres, I couldn't get a straight answer about what the problem was with the card (just BS, interminable periods on hold and constantly changing stories), much less get it resolved.
In India, I've been able to get buy on bank counter withdrawals but (Oh joy) no such facility exists in Sri Lanka.
The upshot of all this is that I had to survive more than two weeks on the limited hard currency that was in my wallet.
There was no diving, no boat fishing, no nice meals, severely limited travelling and drinking and I was limited to cheap guest houses with no blow outs on a nice hotel, even on the last night in Colombo.
Instead, I stayed in the same place through the two weeks ate crap food and on my last day, after walking for 4km carrying 35kg's, I spent my first (and hopefully last) ever night in a YMCA.
"Pi$$ed off" doesn't even come close to my current feelings towards my bank and I will be having "words" when I get home.
Sri Lanka was suposed to be the blow out at the end of my trip and those ******d's *****d it up for me.
The closest I came to a party was a couple of bottles of Lion Stout on St Paddy's day.

Although the family that I previously stayed with in Akurala were mostly OK following the tsunami, I was told more heartrending takes than I could really deal with and got graphic descriptions of that day's events from a French ex-pat that I know from my previous visit.
Not something that I'm going to go into now but it was hard to deal with people who I sort of know telling me their stories with a numb look on their face even 4 years on.
It would have been nice to get away from bumping into people who I know, even if only for a respite from the tales but I couldn't afford to travel......

Weather in Sri Lanka was mixed with regular thunderstorms but I managed a bit of beach fishing and caught lots of small fish that I'm going to have to spend time identifying when I get back.


On getting back to India, I ran into a major tropical depression and there was heavy rain and flooding throughout the 1000km from Trivandrum to Mangalore. between the weather and the fact that the banks were shut because it was Good Friday, I decided not to head inland for my planned second shot at mahseer fishing - It looked like the river might be in flood and I didn't want to find myself in a position wher I travelled that far off the main track and was unable to pay for my fishing side trip.
Instead, I got the next onward train north and headed for Goa. It continued raining right up to the border of Karnataka and Goa and even here, we are having intermittent thunder storms.
Yesterday, the banks re-opened and when I picked up 20,000 RS on a counter withdrawal, I felt like a drowning man getting a lung full of air.

At the moment, it looks like I'm going to stay arround hear for a couple of weeks but if the depression develops into a fully fledged cyclone, I may have to bug out and go north.

Ho hum.

Been fishless for the last two nights but on Sunday, I caught one of the strangest things I've ever seen when I hooked into a bit of crap on the retrieve. As I lifted the lure from the water, the stuff hanging from the hooks started to sparkle. At first, I thought it must be some sort of mylar strip that was reflecting the lights but it was just a short piece of coconut rope and it was flashing like a string of fairy lights with bioluminecence.
I put the torch on it but couldn't see a thing so whatever was doing the glowing was pretty small.
Last night, my mate Ashok caught a nice fish at Keri and as he was sorting out the fish bag at the end of the session, I offered to clean the sand and slime off the fish in the little lagoon behind the sand spit that we fish from. As I stepped into the water, I again saw what looked like reflections of lights arround my feet and just ignored them untill I bent down to clean the fish and every movement generated swirls and eddies of light.
If I moved my hand through the water, it was like stirring up a galaxy of stars. each individual light was difuse and impossible to focus on but the overall effect was mesmerising and one of the most beautifull things I've ever seen.
I darn't tell people here about it because there'd be drowned stoners washing up on the beach in the morning with big smiles on their faces.
As it is, I'm quite tempted to put my goggles in my fishing bag tonight and go for the full on LSD experience without the drugs

Hi Ken,
A couple of weeks back, when my friends and me went on a fishing trip, we saw the same thing. the waves had some small bio- luminescence particles in it, and even the wet sands had some particles glowing. We bent down and used our flash light, and with much care, we took it from the sands.
i was amazed to see, some small egg the size of a grain of sand was the glowing particle. Not sure what egg it was though


Thank,
Binu

I sawthe same thing at the Candolim beach four years back. They are like small eggs and move around in groups in thousands. I visited the beach again the next night and saw those glowing particles again but in a different formation.

Heard of a microbe : Noctiluca. They are found in sea water and are bioluminescent. I dont know if they are egg sized though. I also read somewhere that some jelly fish eggs can be bioluminesent.

Hi,
The advantage of logging on seldom is that at one time got to read all of Ken's infomative reports at one streatch and can say that all make interesting reading. Keep on writing
regards

Wow! Saw this many many years ago on a planet far far away when my rocket was fueled by a completely different power source . We called them Star Dust.

Read about them later. They are a kind of plankton that reacts when disturbed. Really beautiful!

There is an interesting story about a pilot during the Vietnam war. His aircraft had lost all power to the cockpit, no radar, no artificial horizon, no compass, no way of getting back to the aircraft carrier. Until he saw a glowing trail in the sea and followed it to the ship.

Small little wonders!

I am glad that there is a logical answer to the phenomenon or I would say watch the guys who serves you drinks.

"I would say watch the guys who serves you drinks. "

Nah, I was just checking my memory for any remembrances involving mushroom omletts.
There were none.
Same thing last night but not quite so many - and I resisted the temptation to swim.

Nice report Ken. Do you have any plans to fish the east coast?
I haven't heard of MJs or Barrmundi here, but came across some nice GTs and Barracudas.

Maruthu

Maruthu, I have seen the local fishermen pull out plenty of barramundi around the rocks right in front of the Taj. They were using live prawn for bait.

Spot burner , just kidding
Didn't get any recent reports on barras from the locals. They will tell me if there were any as I give most of my catch to them . Will check it out and let you now how it goes, hope I find some

Maruthu

Bops, Taj Goa???

Yeah man.

Maruthu, the barra and MJ's might be a bit thin on the ground along the open coast. find yourself a river system (preferably one that only gets a gentle grope rather than a full on rapping buy the netters) and try your luck there.
Barra are indiginous to the the tropical indian oean from Australa to Yemen, so they are definatly present on the east coast. In fact, I once read about some real monsters (40kg's plus) comming out of the river deltas in north east India and Bangladesh.

Yeah Ken, you should check them out at Guwahati fish market. Bops Fort Aguada has some good game. As usual all my live bait dies before i reach a perticular spot.

Guwahati fish market? What is the local name? Where have u seen in Ghy?

At aguada I never tried fishing with lures. I always used shrimps and mackerels. Small catches. I stayed near Aguada for a year and never got a big catch. Maybe I was not casting properly at the proper place.

Apoo My family is from Laban Shillong and at lehabadi at Guwahati. I was referring to the size of bhetki (barramundi) available in the fish market of guwahaiti.

Lehabadi or Rehabari? I never knew bhetki was barramundi. Yes i have heard that you get bhetki at the paltanbazar fish market. Thanks for the information. Whenever you come to shillong, stay for a day in Ghy too. We can meet up.

Cheers,
Apoo

You are right its Rehabari, its been at least 12 years that I have been to NE. Thanks for the offer Apoo if I am going to shillong I will definetly get in touch with you. By the way Bhetki is Barramundi. Land some friend those rivers are known to hold some big ones.