The weather was a lot kinder compared to a week ago and expectations of a good day's sport were quite high. We set off in the coracle to spin for murrel as Pran was very keen on catching a few. However, after a couple of hours of baking in the sun (I had forgotten my hat at home) all I had to show for my efforts were two murrel and Pran was still murrel-less by the time we docked our coracle in the weeds to ledger for mahseer.
Pran switched to ledgering, whilst I plugged for mahseer. This resulted in Pran getting himself a nice Carnatic carp and I am sure he heaved a sigh of relief.
An hour or so of this and we head back to the car for Bana's culinary special - hotdogs and tea. With lunch out of the way, I assemble the casting rod and reel and show Pran how to use it. To quote him, "This is fantastic and I am definitely going to buy a casting outfit." Mark, are you listening?
Pran still had murrel on his mind so we part ways with him going off in the coracle whilst I walk towards the end of Forbes Sagar to plug for mahseer.
An hour later my phone starts ringing. It's Pran at the other end and he's as excited as an excited thing can be. He's caught his biggest murrel to date. I tell him to boat the fish (they can survive for quite some time out of the water) so that I can take a pic of him holding it later.
I continue plugging for mahseer but only manage to catch another murrel. Perhaps, I need to tell the murrel that I am not paying through my nose for lures from Cabelas for them to chomp down on.
An hour later the phone rings again. It's Pran again. He has returned from his mini murrel expedition and wants to know if he could come over and borrow the camera. This obviously was a polite way of saying, "stop plugging for mahseer and get your fat ar*e over and take some pics of me and my fish."
On my way back to Pran and his fish, I come across this old stone plaque more or less obscured by vegetation.
Here's our young champion with his prize catch.
It's time for high tea and out comes the flask of tea and hotdogs but much to my annoyance the ants had reached the 'dogs because some silly sod had not shut the box properly.
With low tea done with, we then proceeded towards our last session of the day.
First catch goes to me. A small mahseer.
Pran gets the next fish - another nice looking carnatic carp.
I then hook and land three more mahseer and a Carnatic carp. No doubt I was being roundly cursed for hogging all the fun. However, I was distinctly lacking in sympathy after being deprived of my 'dogs.
We did have a few mild intermittent showers during the last session but that did not stop the fish from feeding and mother nature had an additional treat for us.
The bites stopped with the setting of the sun and it was time to return to the car.
I have finally found a so-so dhaba so that is where we had our dinner after which Pran was introduced to some classic rock. The bloke definitely needs to be educated on the subject with Jazz and opera to follow.
