Mark Nicolaides India adventure continues

I hope you’ve found out some useful information from the last few articles on mahseer fishing on India’s River Cauvery. They’re just my frank, unedited, versions of how I saw India for the brief time I was there, earlier this year. You’ll recall that I’d never been to India before this trip, so what I have to say shouldn’t necessarily carry some ‘expert’, authority status.

If you’re looking for some information from someone who really knows that they’re talking about, you’ll need to speak to some like Dave Plummer, Dave’s experience goes back about 20 years and My experience: one week! Even if you’re not actually planning on going to India and fishing for the mahseer, if you’re a keen angler who could possibly see themselves going on one of these trips in the future, reading about this kind of stuff of kind of interesting, anyway, isn’t it?

So what I’m going to do this time is to tell the format of a typical day’s fishing when staying at Galibore Fishing camp. Now please bear in mind this: I travelled as a part of a group of 3 other anglers, being guided by Dave Plummer. A typical day is split up into 3 sessions: morning fishing, lunch/afternoon break and evening fishing.

I was normally up and about at around 6am on most mornings. The actual breakfast wasn’t actually until 7:30am, but I liked to go down to the river (which is only 50 metres away) and maybe fish for a bit, or wonder around looking at all the monkeys and crocodiles. Also, the sunrises were pretty spectacular, too. At breakfast (toast, coffee, tea, fruit, etc…) we’d ( other anglers) would have a bit of a chat and sort of decide where we’d be going for the morning session and what guide would be assigned the task of looking after each one of us. As there were only a few of us there, every angler was assigned their own guide – normally, it’ll be one guide taking care of two anglers, so we were lucky. The stretch of the Cauvery River we were fishing was around 10km in length and at about 8am, we’d all go to separate sections with our guide and start fishing. The guides would do as much, or as little, as you’d want them to do.

But please bear in mind this: anywhere you go in the world, the guides have their own favourite methods they like to use and think they’re the best tactics to use. If you go there and start giving it the big ‘I am a brilliant angler and will you locals a thing or two’ sort of rubbish (just because you’ve caught a few coarse fish in the UK before), they’re going to think you’re a right idiot, or, they’re going to get the hump. Either way, that’s not the best way to get the very best from your guide. So basically, you fish until about 12 noon and use the sort of methods I mentioned in the previous article. Bear in mind that it’s really very hot out there, so when you go, use high protection suncream; at least sun factor 30 and drink loads of water.

At lunch, we all gather round and chat about what happened in the morning’s fishing. It’s funny – whenever you get a group of anglers together and they’re waiting for someone to get back, all they want to know is what you’ve caught and how big, with the emphasis on the size of the fish. If you’ve got one angler at the table and they’ve had a good fish, you can sometimes their enjoyment of their catch disappear when they discover one of the other anglers has caught something bigger. It’s something I’ve noticed a lot over the years of going on these kind of trips. Although it has to be said – I didn’t see much of that on this trip.

After lunch, we all go and do our own thing. Dave would go for a lie down for a bit of piece and quiet, whilst Ade and Ken would fish near the camp for the smaller mahseer and they had a ball doing it, catching a hatful of mahseer, everyday. Paul would try fly fishing for a bit and read his book, whilst I would sometimes fish or do for a bit of a walk around the place.

We’d then all meet up again at 4:30pm, have a bit of a drink and set off to our evening spots and fish to around 8pm. The fishing in the evening was particularly interesting. Not just because the fish normally fed a little better when it got dark, but also because you’d see and hear loads of wildlife. Things like crocodiles swimming across the river and even right by your rod top, when you’re really quiet. Honestly, it’s amazing seeing all these things for real – especially a real life fishing situation. I mean after all, they’re right there. There is a real danger. If you did swim in that river after dark, you would get attacked by a crocodile. Nothing ever really happens of course because don’t do those stupid things, but it’s always there in the back of your mind…

 

After we get back to the camp, we have dinner. And what a meal that was. By far the best food of the day: real curry, cooked by real Indians, in real India… all freshly cooked on the camp, with fresh chapattis, etc…absolutely brilliant. As usual, we’d all have a good chat at the end of the day and generally go to bed around 11pm, ready to get up and do it all again tomorrow.

See you next time

Mark