It’s been a while since I fished. But I was finally able to get up to the tea estate for a long overdue inspection.
The largest water had been off limits for fishing for the last ten years or so as it was maintained as a mixed tilapia, carp and catfish commercial fishery (for the market). But the fish have been netted and a decision has been made to leave it as a cyprinid fishery in a non intensive manner. Whatever netting is done there are always a few left over. As it is a pleasant place to fish as well, I immediately opted to fish there on completing the inspection of the estate.
Jibon and Gang, who look after the estate waters and accompany me while I fish, set up a platform under a young Ficus (Ficus benghalensis) tree which provided much needed shade. It is just the beginning of the monsoon and very hot and humid. They did so by the simple expedient of draping a wooden charpoy over a bamboo frame which they had tied up in the shallow margins.
In the shade of the Ficus
The tree hangs quite low over the water so I was limited as to the length of rod I could use. The shortest rod I had in the battery I had taken up with me was an old Hardy 4/5 weight fly rod. I am sure the makers of the rod will roll their eyes if they ever see the use that I put their product to, but rods are meant to catch fish with.
No doubt I will be preaching to the choir in trying to explain the technique I used, but basically it is float legering with the casting done by the coiled line method.
Lacking the water that comes in with the monsoon the depth was pretty shallow throughout the pond. I only was looking to put the bait out twenty or so feet from the end of the rod, so ground baited the area with rapeseed oil cake wetted with sugar syrup and scented with lesser galangal, fenugreek and white flag. A fly reel loaded with twelve pound fluoro (excessive I know, but when casting by the coiled line method you need some thickness of line to swing it out by hand). I slid a 2 bb Crystal waggler on. The rig including the end tackle is better shown than explained - just a simple running leger.
The hook length is 2 1/2” of braid for flexibility given the stiffness of the heavy fluoro retied later for the photo with the old rig components.
To counter the shallowness of the water and to help trap the float in the angle of the line I sank the rod tip about six inches under the water, using a tackle box to rest the reel on , thus increasing the angle of the rod into the water. I slid the float to the sunken rod tip, coiled the line neatly on the platform and cast out pendulum fashion, by hand.
Float at rod tip, before the line was cast out.
Tightening up to the leger weight cocked the float right over the rod tip.
Float cocked over the rod tip.
This meant that the float had plenty of space to dive down if a fish ran with the bait and the fish running also straightened the line to the rod tip making for a much more effective strike. The float being up close and the relatively short hook length meant every nibble transmitted up the taut line was very visible and allowed one to strike at bites you would not see with the float further out.
The major Indian Carps, as they are called, all grow large but remain the most adept bait thieves. Striking at a series of tiny jigs of the float worthy of the puniest minnow will see your rod suddenly bent double and you wondering if you had broken your wrist on the strike as the line screams away into the distance.
However, I was not fishing for anything huge. Fish in the one to two kg class and Tilapia in the size that the American’s aptly call panfish were expected. But they fight hard even at that weight, especially on a light single handed fly rod.
Jibon netting a feisty fish.
Bait was a paste of bread and red ants eggs.
It was the night of the full moon so using one of those cheap rechargeable torches to see the float by I fished on into the night.
Tilapia, Kalabans (Labeo calbasu), Rohu (Labeo rohita), and the odd small yellow tailed catfish made up the bag.
Tilapia
Kalabans
Apologies for having been so long winded but I am thrilled to have something to report.
All the best
Lakhyaman
