INDIANANGLER

What the hell is gram? In all the classic books you can find at least some notes about this bait. I saw a drawing of a gram baited hook in either CIRCUMVENTING THE MAHSEER or THE ANGLER INDIA/THE MIGHTY MAHSEER. Looks like a corn called chickpea over here in Europe. A fantastic carp bait. If it is chickpea I would well think about trying it on my next trip. Not so much for mahseer, but the Indian carps should love it too after some prebaiting.

dibu

Gram is Chickpea
difference is you get several varities of Gram in India

What do you mean with different varieties? Different sizes? How do you prepare them for fishing?

Here they get soaked for a night and get some sharp cooking afterwards. Just after cooking I normally do also add some artificial flavouring. If you do before most of the scent is gone during the cooking process. Often also a good bet to add some sweetner or sugar. When fishing a normally stocked lake holding some good fish 20lbs+ I would have some prebaiting too, putting several kg into the water.

Can gram get bought in the villages close to Bheemeswary or Galibore camps? Roughly any price idea? For my next trip I'd try to purchase some quantity.

dibu

Hi Dibu,

I fish Salt Water, don't use gram, maybe some freshwater guy will be able to answer you. My apologies...

Hi Dibu,

As ground bait, you could use cooked green gram mixed with oil cake or even cooked rice mixed with oil cake, adding some anniseed or hing or jeera powder to the mixture. The oil cake will need to be soaked in a little water (it is given to cattle as feed), and can be obtained in some of the larger villages. The best place to buy it would be from a shop that converts ground nuts / mustard / dry coconuts into oil. Use the groundnut or mustard oil cake.

It will be given to you in very hard peices, just use a little water to soften it into a thick paste. Keeping it in the sun for a couple of days is even better as it will start to ferment.

Add the green gram or rice and one or all 3 of the other ingredients mentioned, keeping the paste as thick as possible.
Get yourself some clay type of soil, and mix it with the oil cake mixture and finally into balls that you can dry in the sun. The ratio of oil cake to clay could be 1:1
When the cricket balls size groundbait are dry enough not to disintegrate when you put them in water, take them out on a coracle to a pool that does not have a current, and which you are pretty sure holds Rohu / Mirgal / Carnatic Carp/ Calabanse and drop them in the area, not too far from the bank.

Bait the area for a couple of days before fishing there using around 2 to 3 kgs of ground bait each time. Ensure that no one else fishes there while you are building up the fishing, or the fish will get wary.

These fish can be taken close to the bank in 5 to 6 ft of water.
As hookbait you can use boiled Chickpeas or boiled Indian corn as bait, but will find that the Rohu to be a real theif, he will take the chick peas off the hook without you knowing. They are mostly ground feeders and hence you need to hold your bait a few inches off the ground. Use a sensitive float like a waggler, and line of around 10 lbs BS. Small carp hooks are required because of the small mouths these fish have.

Other good hook baits are atta boild for 15 minutes (ensure that they do not give you maida flour instead), you could use vinilla or strawberry essence to add smell and taste to the atta. Earth worms threadled in a ball on the hook are also great bait.

Each of these fish have their own ways of eating and hence the float action and the bubbles in the area are a dead giveaway as to which of these fish are in the area.

I will try to get my brother Robert to write up a little more on this, as he is more of an expert on this type of fishing that i.

Regards
Owen

Dear Owen,

A great response to my questions but this sounds fairly complicated and time taking to me. Also I should face problems in getting all the needed ingredients. I thought it to be much more simple and my idea was that on the next trip in autumn on the way from Bangalore to Bheemeswary or Galibore I just stop in one on the villages buy a 25 or 50 kg bag of chickpea or sweatcorn (is this the same as described as INDIAN CORN in youst answer?). Prepare it my way and do some prebaiting in a likely looking spot as you already described. I was additionally thinking about checking such a quiet pool with a fishfinder first for the best spot (intersting looking depth/hard bottom) and then dropping my bait.
I don’t doubt your experience in any way, but don’t you think when using a groundbait (as described by yourself) you’ll attract plenty of small Puntius or baby carps to the spot as well? A soaked and cooked chickpea is getting a size of about 1-1,3 cm in diameter. If two or three are used on a hairrig one might be able to outfish the smaller sized fish which should also not get attracted by the prebaiting. Hairrigs are a mess for mahseer in the strong current areas, but for the Indian carps they normally should work when fishing on clean bottom. You told me that boilies are now working on the WASI lakes, I’m sure you’re using hairrig when fishing with them.

Amount of groundbait: You said you’ll add about 2-3kg of your own recipe groundbait. I have the feeling that you really need plenty of kg to get the fish attracted to your spot. When fishing big French rivers for carp it is not unusual that you need 150 to 200 kg of baits to be successful during a two week trip. Also on the Cauvery there should be plenty of bait needed to get the fish attracted to it, but it is really not a fine thing if you add loads of bait (finally it is not only bait, but also human food) in places where many poor people are starving.

Finally: What is atta and maida flour?

thanks for your help..

Dirk

Hi Dirk,
Well the process does not take more than an hour or two, it's just finding the ingredients that takes time.
I have tried it on the lakes and have had some sizeable fish concentrated in the area that had been ground baited.
Chickpeas are different from Indian corn.
Indian corn is used for making corn flour and will be orange/yellow in colour and need to be softened by boiling unless they are fresh on the cob. Locally known as "Makka Chola"
Chickpeas on the other hand, as the name suggest are covered by a layer of skin, light creamish colour and also need a little boiling if they are dried. Locally known as "Kadle".

Well we tend to be a little more conservative in this country regarding food items, and you would probably have half the fish in the Kaveri in your swim if you went in for 200 Kgs of groundbait

Some of them might just decide that it was time to swim to Germany if you visit more often

No i haven't tried boilies at our WASI lake, though i did give some to my brother to try in the lakes of east India, but the quantity was probably not enough to get the fishes attention, and hence nothing happened.
But i do use very small Tungsten Rohu hooks that are handmade (when i can get them from the east) and they do very nicely for our Indian Carp.

The idea of showing a clean hook, above or below your boilie does not seem to grab our carp, and i don't know of any anglers who come from the UK who have seriously tried this method here over any length of time with success.

In the lakes of the east, my brother usually dives in and cleans out a swim days before he plans to fish a new area, sometimes even going as far as placing slabs of stone at the bottom where he plans to fish. God help anyone who tries to gate crash his swim

Last of all Maida is what is some times known as "American flour" and is very white in colour and when put in water turns all gooey and runny!
Where as Atta is a flour made from wheat and is slightly darker than Maida.
When atta is kneaded and boiled in water for about 15 minutes, it can turn more rubbery than Ragi, adding some Haldi (Turmenic) powder (gives the bait a yellow colouring) and is great for both carp and masheer.

For murral artificial small brown frogs dipped in and out of the water, are great besides mepps spinners.
Regards
Owen

Nice going Owen !! You sure that u not the expert on carp fishing ??

Dirk, just a little extra to the info that Owen has so rightly given.. the catla only goes after sweet smelling baits and scented stuff. So you can think about using vanilla essence or honey with your bait.. The mrigal and rohu go for stronger and more pungent smelling bait so suggest you use hing mixed with your bait or some rotten cheese/bananas/jackfruit ( the smellier, the better)..

Catlas also tend to take their grandfather's time in eating the bait so you have to have infinite patience for these guys whereas the rohu/mrigal are fast buggers who hit-and-run. So you gotta be careful that u dont find your rod flying into the waters..

Another very good point raised by owen is that of ground-baiting. This has to be done a few days continuously prior to fishing in that spot... Its a tedious process but hey, NO PAIN, NO GAIN !!!

They be many guys here with loads of info and other stuff and am sure they are willing to share it.. So go ahead, make their day !!

Hi Guys, have a question about bait here-any one tried the fish/ prawn paste called BLACHANG ? it a blackish paste, rock hard, can be softened with soaking in water-vile stuff, (a staple in Malaysian cooking)But the stink will drive many nuts...Before I patent it, thought i'd share it with you guys...
Axx

Hi Gavin,
I have paid my dues on the lakes too mate!
Well in India that's where most of us start isin't it.
Trying to get Robby to do a write up on Rohu and Mirgal fishing, how to recognise them and tactics to use.
Dirk is right, we need to start up a section on species identification.
What say you Bops?
Regards
Owen

Dear Owen, dear Gawin,

Thanks for all your help. I already asked Prakash about how to purchase some of the bait’s/groundbait’s raw material for the next trip. Hope he’ll find a way to get it. I’ll have a try in using your tactics and think I'll also add some of my “European” ideas into the fishing. By end of November I should be able to tell about the results. Don’t expect too much as the main target will be landing mahseer. Only limited time can be put into catching other species.

Dirk

Hi Owen,

We already have a section on bait, tackle and tactics. You could post a new topic under this section called Species & Tactics

Bops

Hi Dirk,
One spot near Galibori that has many varieties of fish including the carps and Labeos that we have been discussing. The place is called Crocodile rocks and you may know of it. When the water is down it produces some great fishing for all species including Masheer. I neglected this spot for many years due to the slack water there, but realized very recently that it is a highly potential place. If you get an opportunity do try it. It is a great place to put out half a dozen rods on stands.
Regards
Owen

Dear Owen,
think I know the spot and already fished from it & even caught from it. I'll try to find some pictures. The pictures that can be found here from Crocs Rock are mostly made at high water conditions, right? Is the spot to be found more or less in the middle between Bheemeswary and Galibore? When you take the jungle road it'll be the second place which allows to go down to the river?

Dirk

Hi Dirk,
Crocodile rocks comes after Galibori camp on the Bheemeshwari Galibori road. It is not more than a Kilometer from Galibori camp going in the direction of Sangam.
It is ideal to fish here when the water is low. From the road there is a well defined path after the concrete bridge to go down to the water. You will see a huge rock near the water, and a kind of grassy bank platform running along a long stretch that is very comfortable to sit on.
The water is said to be pretty deep here in places (upto 60 ft or so i hear).
Huge Masheer, infact all the fish over 100 that have been taken recently,have been from this spot.
A few crocs on the far bank can be seen basking, and a wealth of fish life just 10 feet from the bank, which is sheer rock.
Ask any of the Galibori guides, they all know the spot. They love taking anglers there, because it is easy fishing with virtually no snags, and if your luck is in you could even hit a big masheer while fishing for carp / labeo.

Seriously some good advice for carps !

thanks a million Gavin and Owen...This was a difficult post to find...

nice to see you guys after such a long while!