Left home at 5 a.m., met up with P & L in front of the University gates and we were at the cottage by 7:20 a.m..
Got the stove going for some tea, had a ham sandwich or two and then trooped of to the lake.
Within minutes Prathap spots a small murrel swiming close to the bank wall and gets him.
Next up are a couple of small tilapias that we retain for lunch.
We were primarily ledgering for rohu but would spin for a few minutes to break the monotony and during one such break, Prathap lands a korva.
After lunch we paddle across the canal and climb upto the road running parallel with the cottage lake to observe some grass carps we had seen from the cottage. We spot six of them and three seperate shoals of big tilapia.
I would estimate the smallest of the grass carps at atleast 20lbs.. We tried floating bread and grass but were not successful.
We head back to the cottage at 3:45 p.m., have our tea and then proceed to Forbes Sagar. The plan was to spin for murrel until sunset and then ledger for mahseer until 8 p.m..
Now this is where the pace really quickens. In the one and a half hours of spinning for murrel, Prathap catches nine murrel. His wife bags her first murrel as well. This one made it to the dinner able. She went on to bag another.
Since, as per the new rules, only three people, including the ghillie, are now allowed in the coracle, I take Latha's place and manage to get one before the end of the session, whilst Prathap manages to catch a few more.
In total we caught twelve murrel during this session.
As the sun sets and the moon begins to rise, we paddle to the other end of the lake to ledger for mahseer.
I get the first one, then Prathap gets one. I get another and Prathap follows suits. He also catches himself an eel. For some reason I forget to take a pic of the eel. It was a smallish fellow. The mahseer pics will have to be excused as it is almost impossible to frame them in the viewfinder or LCD screen in the dark and I am always in a hurry to get them back in the water as soon as possible.
Within half an hour of the sun setting the temperature dropped dramatically and the mist that rose from the lake's surface gave the place a very horror film like setting.
We wrapped up the mahseer session at 8 p.m. and headed back to the cottage where we saw this little fellow.
Soon after dinner, we saw a vehicle approaching the opposite bank of the cottage lake. Turned out to be a group of poachers night shining for deer and pig but they high tailed it out of there when we shown the light on them. These guys are getting pretty brazen considering that the cottage lights were on and even had the audacity to turn their spot light on us or perhaps they were just plain stupid. Apparently, they live in that area and have some political clout (C.K. Jaffer Sharieff, allegedly).
We hit the sack by 11 p.m. and were up by 6:15 and it was wonderful to see the heavy fog covering the lake but it dissipated within thirty minutes or so of the sun rising. See the full moon just above the trees.
Prathap and I hit the cottage lake by 7 a.m. and got quite a few bites. However, these were usually from smaller fish. Here's a small Carnatic Carp that Prathap caught.
Later in the session, Pathap hooked into a rohu and had a jolly good fight. He might be small but he was full of spirit and that was also the case with the two subsequent rohus that I caught later on. I was unable to get a pic as the rohu slipped off into the water whilst Prathap was unhooking it. It weighed in at 4 kgs.
There's a small marshy area just behind where we were fishing. Prathap heard some movement and went to have a look thinking it could be wild boar and that's exactly what it was. Five of them infact.
Latha fixed us a good breakfast that we had at the bankside itself. I then moved a short distance away as more than two lines from that particular part of the bank can get to be a bit much.
I laid the rod on the rod rest and kept an eye on the line. Fifteen minutes or so later, there was a violent jerk and I picked up the rod and struck. The way it had struck, I first thought it was a mahseer but it turned out to be a rohu. After playing him for a bit I gave the rod to Latha so that she could experience what a rohu fights like.
I am afraid I dropped the fish whilst lifting him up for the camera and I wasn't happy about that. However, the alacrity with which he made off was reassuring.
After another hour, Prathap and I moved to the far bank and saw a lot of rohu activity. A couple of them were feeding within just a few feet from us.
I managed to get another rohu and this one fancied himself to be a marlin because he jumped clean out of the water and was a lovely copper colour. After the jumping around he came in pretty tamely but when he saw the coracle he just zipped off and really made the reel sing. This happened three times in total and it's a sound I don't think I'll ever tire off.
Soon after this we paddled back to the cottage, had our lunch and were on our way back home.
Types and number of fish caught:
Murrel: 15
Korva: 1
Mahseer: 4
Tilapia: 3
Carnatic Carp: 1
Eeel: 1
Rohu: 3
Catfish: 1
Tackle used:
Rod: Temple Fork Outfitter 6', 2-piece.
Reel: Daiwa Exceler 4000.
Line: 20 lb. Power Pro for everything barring the mahseer. For the latter, I switched to 20 lb Berkley Trilene Big Game mono.
Bait: Ragi.
Spinner: Mepps Agila No.4
looks like the water levels are considerably lower than from the time we were there.
Your conservation efforts are really paying off.
)
