The fishing on Friday started a bit late as I had to wait for some WASI members to vacate the cottage. Even so, the first half was pretty productive.
Since I had booked the cottage for the night I decided to fish for rohu at the lake adjoining it. Got the first bite at 10:15 but struck too early. Second bite was at 11 a.m. and there was no mistake this time.
11:15 a.m. I get a message from Inder on the cellphone and as I was about to reply, I get another bite, strike instinctively but no joy. Almost threw the bloody phone into the water in disgust.
Finally at 1 p.m. I get another bite and I convert this one.
1:15 p.m. see's me hooking into another.
I break for lunch around 2 p.m. and am back in action before three. The blasted tilapia now decide that they like the taste of ragi and instead of rohu I am left with three tilapia. Out of spite I keep back one of the blighters for dinner.
The original plan was to fish for mahseer at Forbes Sagar between 5 and 10 p.m. but a couple of friend's dropped by on their way to Bangalore, so it was almost 10 p.m. before I started fishing at Forbes.
Missed striking on a bite early on but managed to hook into a mahseer on the next. This fish had the full force of the current in his favour and since I told the ghillie that I would like to fight the fish without using the coracle, it was a fairly decent fight. As I bring the fish to me, I tell the ghillie that we will release the fish after I take the pic. What I should have said is release the fish after he holds the fish up and I take a pic. Unfortunately, I took a pic (terrible one at that) whilst the fish was still in the water, so when I bring the fish to the ghillie he slips the hook and lets it go. I couldn't believe my eyes at what he had done but there was nothing more to be done but shut up and fish on. This fish in my estimate would have been around 30" in length and would have weighed around 4 kgs.
Since the moon was almost full I was expecting a lot of fish activity but this time I was proven wrong. Wound up the night session at midnight, got back to the cottage, had a bath, set the alarm for 6:30 a.m. and hit the sack.
Next morning I checked out of the cottage early and met up with Inder and Pran at Forbes at 8:30 a.m.. Inder and I fished for mahseer from the coracle whilst Pran fished along the bank. I think the heat was a bit too much for Inder because he took the first opportunity to get out of the coracle and fish with Pran.
In the meanwhile, the absence of bites and the heat was proving to be frustating and I finally called it a day at 2:30 p.m.. Sometime during the day, I managed to catch a murrel but that was the only catch made on Saturday.
The only silver lining to a rather frustrating day's fishing is that I have found an excellent place to ledger for rohu at Forbes. Hopefully, I will bag a couple this Saturday.
Before I wind up have a look at this eel I saw whilst fishing for mahseer.
Whilst I left for Bangalore early, Inder and Pran planned to stick on and they will add their report here. By order!
