INDIANANGLER

The Doc finally made a pump house call. We reached the place around 7.30 am and were shocked to see no water in the canal. But as we walk around the machine room we were relieved to see and hear the splash of big fish in the holding pool.

Lines were cast with nice pieces of nice chicken liver. And the wait began. After a while a few plugs and spoons and spinners and a frog were made to do a few laps. But not a single one of them could entice the fish.

And then it started. There were a few bites but no hook ups. It was the dam turtles enjoying their sunday brunch of liver masala. Just As I was giving up... and starting to feel a bit bad for dragging people out of bed my rod jerked and the line stiffened. (no comments)

A short and sweet fight later a nice silver muley, around 1.5kgs, was hauled ashore.





A little later the Doc's reel started clicking. i made the mistake of grabbing the rod and giving it a nice jerk to set the hook. It was set but I pumped to hard and lost what could have been an enormous fish or turtle.

Two mistakes in a matter of minutes. The first picking up somebody's rod. And the second not being patient. Apologies doc.

I then caught another small turtle. Doc and I had a tough time getting the hook out of its throat. In the end we had to cut the shank and release the turtle with a bit of the hook still stuck in it. Hope the bugger makes it.

Till the next time.

Nice write up! Who's that holding the fish?

Bops

Hi MKen,

Nice catch.

Cheers,
Apoo

That's me holding the fish. And Doc is in the background.

Thanks Apoo. We'll get a few more I hope.

Hi MK,

Do you fish in the water in that last picture where part of the rod is showing?

Bobby

Where is this place located? how do we get there?

yup Bobby!

We fish that water. The big tubes you see to the right are the pump outlets. The pumps are used to move the water to a higher level. They were off for maintenance (yes they actually do that). When they are on there is a big patch of white water. Fishing is good with plugs and spoons then. Right now the fish are trapped. The canal is very low. But you can see a lot of fish and the damn bait robbing turtles.

Susheel_John!
How do you get here. Well you fly from bang. Take a cab to my place. And then we take a two hour drive to the place. Google Earth coordinates 28* 30.51.99N 76* 28.52.83E. I think that's the place but the pix have a very low resolution and there are many small canals in the area. But that's the general direction.

Ever eaten a Turtle MK?

They make pretty good eating , I used to eat them in India until I saw how they killed one for the table..

Hey MKen , Doc - Looks like you guys had a good time.. Just a few pointers from my side..
1) Using stuff like chicken guts and stuff will almost always attract them toitles... So if you don't wanna hook them up, suggest you dont use stuff like them smelly guts and liver..
2) NEVER NEVER NEVER try and unhook a toitle with your bare hands.. The dude might just grab your fingers and retreat into his shell and you could be a few digits short on your hand... I have seen some guy losing four of his fingers this way..
What you should ideally do when you hook up a toitle is take a strong branch or something that the toitle can bite upon.. Move it around his mouth and let him grab it. Ensure that it it a decent size branch so even if he tries and retreats back into the shell, the branch will stop him from doing so..
Then turn him onto his back and then proceed to take the hook out.. Their skin is extremely tough and 9 out of 10 times it is impossible to get the hooks out.. So suggest that you cut the hook and let him go..
If the hook is in the mouth, cut the line... NO QUESTIONS ASKED.. NO NEED FOR RAMBO-giri !!!

I think this should cover it.. In case I have left out anything ( and I think I might have ) will let you guys in on it...

Use Barbless...

Never eaten a turtle. But I have heard they are 'Heat' giving. Don't need ant ...yet.

But on the serious side. Terrapins are endangered. And there is a law against killing them. Pity coz the pump house could feed an army.

Barbless is the way to go.

Ken, you didnt mention the nuances of the rod exchange!
like when ken got a hookset , it was on the 2nd of 4 rods placed a few feet apart-so, begins the 'dance of the rod exchange' I grab the other rod and duck and feint and make sure no entanglement with Ken and clear the area.
My first mulli outside of a book...
To complete the trio, photos were taken by Dev, another IA member

Gav-found out the hard way about the terrapins bite powers...we got a hook remover in and began the field surgery and it was a tough job , with no anesthetist around Lucky i could retract enough lip for Ken to cut the hook and then the terrapin righted itself and scooted for life on land-jokes apart, that guy lit his afterburners

Best
Axx

PS- Ken, it was 43 degrees centigrade yesterday! Dev was right

Man was it hot. and was I cooked. got back and found my massage man waiting. The minute he started doing his number and rubbing oil my dogs started drooling. Had to chase them out of the room.

good show guys! man I wish I was there this time round! did you guys manage to go to the dawai khana dude?

I have caught a couple of turtles Mken, and have had to cut the line as it was impossible to remove the hook. On both occasions the turtle spat out the hook in 15 minutes flat and we put him back in the water.
Gav is right about guts and worms, turtles can't resist them.
Doc sometimes having too many rods out can be a real bother. You catch less and work more.
Nice mulley there!
Regards
Owen

And cheese - I caught a turtle once on AMUL Cheese !!!!

Good story, nice pics too!

Was the mulley caught on a lure or on liver?

Ive been having great fun catching singharas on lures this year, but no mulleys so far. I'll post the pics after a couple of more trips.

The mulley was caught on chicken liver. Been chucking a lot of of plugs in with on luck.

What are you using for singara? And where are you catching them?

Caught all the singharas at Mangla Dam, Pakistan.

The most effective lure is the Mepps 5 Aglia or Aglia Long. Large Vibrax spinners work well too. Tried diving plugs but they didnt produce anything.

Guy's I like this pump house gang thingy! It's like back to the roots except that you guys are better equiped:lol:
You guys shoot off there sundays and holidays and grab a couple.The water looks clean enough too.
How far is it from Delhi Ken / Asif ?

by the way, how deep is it ??

It is 1 1/2 hrs away from DLF (Gurgoan). And off the main highway. So you drive through the backlanes of Haryana. Actually the drive is very nice... lots of fields, farms, small villages and of course the big smelly towns.

gavin!

The water is pretty deep. Those big pipes you see in the pix are the outlets to massive pumps. These pumps are 20 feet below. So I would add another 5 feet and make that 25 ft when the water is flowing.

right now the water is low as the pumps were off (maintenance) so the water level is down by five feet.

Silting is a big problem here. i was using a float for a while and plumbed depths from 4 feet to 'not feasible to use a float'

Hey Mken - I will be in Gurgaon on the 6th of June till the 8th for a Company meet.. Will try and stay back an extra day.. Do you think we can arrange for a trip then ??

sure thing mate. will surely get you hooked up

By the way Gavin!

To join the Pump House Gang you have to go through an initiation ceremony.

Everybody! I will post pix later.

Initiation ???

The name of your Gang scares the kaka out of me

OMO ... u sure Gavins not 3 feet tall and works in a circus part time with a red nose ?????

Hey Mken ... if the initiation ceremony has pain and theres a cost to it ..... send the bill to me .....

3ft6" to be precise. Put him out in the sun long enough and he turns purple

3ft 6 1/2 inches, mate.. Me grown since December

And that's when he is lying down.

the additional 1/2 inch that is.

Ok.. We now have, "THE GUTTER GANG"

Ken,
tell em about the initiation-I'm yet to get the muck out of my hair !!
he horror, oh the horror.
Gav-
The gutter house gang has been around... thats a watered down version !
good to know you'll be here in jun, which means I can look forward to some packages?
We'll try to make it to garmukteshwar upstream...I'm working on it.Wide stretch of ganga.
Best
Axx

The muck out of your hair... man tell me about it. My hands still smell of chicken liver. And to think I would fly to mumbai just to dig into a plate of masala liver. Now I will never be able to.

Might go back there tom. But there is a remote possibility that I might just be able to get away to Bhakra for a day. Drive 8 hr - fish 12 hrs - drive back 8 hrs.

I DO believe you will go fishing Ken!