The Hunt for Mahseer – Part 1Signs and Preparations IT IS A widely held belief in southern India that the relative positions of the stars govern every action in life. It’s all a question of timing. Pick the right day and good things will happen, but venture out on the wrong mission on the wrong day and the results can be catastrophic. I’m not a big believer in astrology (although I do consult moonstrike.co.uk from time to time!) but I have to admit the omens seemed very good on the day I made the pilgrimage to Birmingham with my fishing buddy Jim to collect our visas.
We arrived at the traditional queue outside the Consulate at 8am and from that moment the day ran like clockwork. It only took an hour for us to shuffle our way to the shelter of the front door; some guy from Bargain Hunt was on hand with amusing antique anecdotes to cheer the crowd, and despite the outrageous odds we were among the 250 lucky people who got our forms to the counter before noon. Not a record by any means (in ’97 we memorably collected our visas by half eleven) but at least we would be done in a day. Faced with a couple of hours to kill whilst our applications were processed, we decided to visit a local fishing shop for a mooch. Call it karma (if you must) but half an hour later we were in a Kingstanding tackle dealer’s gabbling away like excited school kids with the jovial proprietor. We had picked Foster’s of Birmingham at random from a ketchup-stained Yellow Pages at a local greasy spoon, and by some crazy action of chance it turns out that Richard is a veteran Indian angler with 17 or so trips under his belt! What a time to meet a guru! We spent a head-reeling hour in intense fishing banter trying to absorb Richard’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the various tactics and techniques required for mahseer hunting. We left the shop much wiser men and after only another hour and a half, in another queue, we finally secured our visas. An auspicious start to our trip…
The Journey We flew out to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) a couple of weeks later with fellow India enthusiast Steve Lockett. After a couple of days relaxing in the city we went our separate ways for the first part of the trip. Steve headed for Goa with his wife for some r’n’r on its palm-fringed beaches, and Jim and I spent the next ten days or so travelling slowly and erratically, fishing our way southward towards mahseer country. When we all met up again in a pizza restaurant in Bangalore, we were joined by the fourth member of our party, Steve’s good friend Bopanna, an experienced lure fisherman and the editor of indianangler.com.
The River By the following evening we were in a jeep on a very bumpy track, excitedly clutching our travel rods and climbing high into a densely forested region of Karnataka. Eventually the road dropped down into the river valley and we got our first sight of the sacred Kaveri; a shimmering slab of water framed beautifully in the fading light by the imposing jungle beyond. We stood momentarily silenced as we contemplated the scene; a classic river anglers’ paradise with long even glides begging for a waggler, deep holes crying out for a bait-and-wait campaign, and rapids, runs and pools that needed some serious lure attention.
The sun was dropping fast over the awakening forest and as one we snapped out of our reverie, and raced against the advancing night to assemble rods and reels. Jim, as ever, was the first ready to go and declaring a ‘fishy vibe,’ he left us struggling with palomars and split rings in the rapidly ensuing gloom. We all glanced up briefly at the sound of his lure’s first bath, and then looked at each other incredulously as he shouted every expletive in the book and desperately struggling to prevent his 4lb tc rod from folding in two and his heavy duty big pit reel from bursting like a balloon under the sudden, terrifying strain. We swiftly abandoned our half-set rods and ran towards the river.
Never before have I actually felt like applauding a fish, but this was without a doubt the most awesome display of piscine tenacity and athleticism that I have ever witnessed. If we’d had scorecards, it would have been 10s across the board. After ten minutes it was still touch-and-go as this first mighty mahseer made a series of spectacular runs and dives. Collectively we held our breath and five minutes later she was finally ready. I took charge of netting the fish as Jim was in no fit state by this point, and lying prostrate on my belly with my arms outstretched I received my baptism from the Kaveri, as the fish eventually slapped angrily over the edge of the mesh.
It had almost entirely engulfed a seven-inch lure, but thanks to the barbless trebles it was comparatively easy to unhook. We were all in such a state of euphoria and so wrapped up in the moment that it didn’t occur to any of us, until long after releasing this scale-perfect muscle-machine, that we hadn’t taken any photos! For the record she weighed 18lb 9oz, and all we can remember about the lure (which was eventually lost to one of the many rocky snags) was that it was a shallow diving (2-4ft) roachy pattern with a red/ white belly. There was no more time for fishing that night. Darkness had quickly overtaken us and so we built a fire, broke out a bottle of Old Monk (Indian rum) and settled back to listen to the exotic sounds of our new home, and to make plans for the week ahead. Noddies and Boilies The following day was lost in angling terms as we all turned in to lure-mad noddies scaring the heck out of every fish for miles. We thrashed the river’s clear water to frenzied foam both from the bank and an over-loaded coracle, in a misguided attempt to reproduce the amazing success of the previous evening. As we dissected our collective blank that night we all silently kicked ourselves and resolved not to get so stupidly over-excited again.
We had been discussing potential baiting strategies for weeks via email, and in earnest since our arrival, and having identified and thoroughly mapped and plumbed a promising nearby swim we decided to switch to plan B.
Ragi has become synonymous with mahseer fishing in southern rivers, but we were convinced that improvements could be made to the traditional mix, especially on this lightly fished stretch that saw little in the way of prebaiting. Our solution was to import some homegrown flavours that had proved reliable for English specimens (big barbel and carp) to spice up this Indian staple. We chose a Rod Hutchinson Monster Crab boilie base mix, and Source and Monster Crab liquids as our secret weapons. That afternoon we began a two-day baiting campaign at three ambush points off a comfortably wide swim. We laced heavily from the coracle, twice daily, with large ‘techno’ ragi boilies (to suit a 4/0 Owner SSW hair rig), 14mm halibut pellets and chickpeas (channa).
I am completely in agreement with Charles Rangley-Wilson’s comments in his recent series Accidental Angler. You have to be some sort of nutter to spend all day ‘arse-boiling on rocks’ behind a baited rod. It is a war of attrition that is not for the faint-hearted and I doff my cap to those with enough endurance and drinking water, but we decided to restrict our leger sessions to the early morning and into the night. The first night of fishing was fruitless in fish terms but was nonetheless eventful as a troop of wild elephants happened by. In the still night air we heard their low moans and grumbles long before we could establish which bank they were on and we heaved a sigh of relief as they passed through the trees opposite, with only the occasional snap of a twig and the odd grunt to betray their presence. As it turned out we didn’t have to wait long for the baiting strategy to pay off. The next morning as the sun rose over the tree line, Steve’s upstream rod tore off the rests… NB: Request to my Fellow FM’ers. Next: Big fish, crocodiles, tigers and the ones that got away in Part 2 – ‘Mahseer on the Waggler’ |
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