We left my place at 5 a.m. and reached Forbes Sagar at 7:30 a.m.. Bang on schedule!
Fortunately, it hadn't rained for the past three days, so 4WD was not required but it still means that I have to get my chassis washed again.
Since the head ghillie wasn't around (he had the keys to the coracle and the oar. We have been chaining the coracle to the bank as some miscreants had tried to set it afloat a few months back.), we took our time having our breakfast of chicken sandwiches and tea.
One reason for this trip was that I was very keen to try my new rod which I had ordered specifically for murral fishing in very weedy areas. It's a 6', 2-piece Temple Fork Outfitter spinning rod. For the time being I have coupled it with a Shimano Symetre 2500 RI loaded with thin 20lb Mustad mono. I have never tried this line before and was keen to see how it would perform. Incidentally, the line was bought from Olympic Sports on Double Road but this was the only spool. If interested, the Bangalore boys can ask for it at their other two outlets. It may just be available.
Pran was using a Rowen murral rod and a Shakespeare reel loaded with 20 lb line. BTW, the reason for the 20lb line was that we wanted to try for medium sized mahseer later in the day.
By 8:15 or so we were on the water and soon after a murral took the frog lure but spat it out promptly. This was repeated again after a few casts but on the third take the fish was not so lucky and it was promptly earmarked for lunch as it wasn't too big nor small and just the size for three people.
A short while later another murral took the lure in clear water and immediately made a beeline for the weeds. However, I saw this coming and was able to keep him out of the weeds and cranked him over to the coracle. Once photographed, he was sent packing back to his weedy den.
By now Praveen was having serious problems with his tackle as he was getting 'birds nest' on a regular basis. So we rowed back to the bank and I fixed him up with a 6'6" 2-piece Rapalla spinning rod that Asif had gifted me. I also switched the reel to a Shimano CX 2500 loaded with 20 lb Power Pro braid with about 9 metres of 20 lb Berkley Trilene BigGame mono acting as a shock leader (you don't have to use that much mono). Bops (Gasram Gandu) has been insisting that I try braid and within Forbes it is reasonably safe to do so, though I wouldn't try it where the canal flows into Forbes as I have seen 30lb braid snap in a wink of an eye. I went cockeyed trying to tie an Albright knot as shown on the Power Pro site but Asif sent me another link and with the help of my son, I was able to get it right. Well, I am assuming I have got it right as nothing challenging has been caught on it to really test it.
Whilst we were on the bund (embankment), we tried stalking for murral along the periphery and it also gave Praveen a chance to practice his casting.
After about an hour we sent the head ghillie home with the murral caught earlier in the day so that his wife could cook it for our lunch. We got back into the coracle but the murral must have gone off the feed as there was no sign of them.
We gradually made our way 50 yards or so into the canal and tackled up to ledger for mahseer. I had three good bites. The first one I mistook for a vagary in the current and did not even get to strike. The second bite occured whilst I was lighting a cigarette and whilst I did strike that wasn't sufficient as I was unable to follow up with the reel. The third miss was just that and you could probably put it down to bad luck. Praveen had atleast a couple of bites but his striking wasn't good enough - even for braid but he will learn.
I have been suspecting this for some time and in my opinion, Forbes Sagar has relatively better mahseer action to offer than that at Headworks. Only the canal down stream of Headworks is under WASI protection, whilst the other surrounding waters are netted. Infact, Inder has seen a chap walk off with a bag full of mahseer and Praveen noticed some handlines as well yesterday. Certainly, the tug of the mahsser near Forbes Sagar is far stronger than the ones I have had at Headworks.
We rowed back to where the Gypsy was parked as lunch had arrived and I rather over indulged myself because I was sorely tempted to doze off for an hour or two in the back of the Gypsy. However, catching forty winks was not what we there for and we left Forbes to go to Headworks.
Hungry kya?
We fished for an hour or so on the downstream side of Headworks. I got three bites of which I converted one and Pran got his first mahseer using a spinner.
We then tried the upstream side of the dam wall but did not get any bites there. We fished for another thrity minutes or so after sunset using a plug and spinner but the mahseer weren't interested, so we packed up and headed back home.
Mack The Knife
