India Update

[Ken L]

My fishing exploits have been a bit mixed on this trip. On ariving

back in Arombol (Goa) after a bit of a tour arround. I had a bait fishing trip and caught half a dozen

catfish and a moray eel as well as hooking something that I couldn't

stop.

After meeting an English/South African guy who's also a fishing nut,

we went out again with baits to fish a slightly more promising

looking part of the beach. More catfish were caught (all small), I

got bitten off twice (probably small sharks) and hooked something

that ran 40m at high speed before straitening out the hook.

 

 

Lure fishing has been a bit more hit and miss and in two sessions at

Querrim, I had a bunch of bumps but only managed one hookup. That one

hookup was however a THING that smashed into a six inch Bomber lure

and then took off on a 60m run against almost two KG's of drag before

destroying two of the treble hooks and spitting the whole thing back

at me with just a scale on one of the points to taunt me. It didn't

jump or thrash, in the surf so I don't think it was a monster

Barramundi. My money is on it having been a BIG Indian Salmon but

we'll never really know.

 

Last night, everything came right. Four of us went over the boarder

into Maharashtra to fish a smallish river. It started slow but as the

tide rose, fish started moving in and I ended up with four Barramundi

to ten and a half pounds landed, three lost and half a dozen bites

that I failed to connect with. The other lads managed a fish each

with Ashok a waiter in the local bar) matching my ten and a half pounder for equal top place on

the night. I learned a lot and confirmed some things that I'd been

thinking about before comming to India. I also renewed my faith in

some lures that have never really worked for me in the UK and which I

only packed because of the distance that I can chuck them.

 

I now have less than a week to land one of these beasts that I don't

seem to be able to stop but on the plus side, tonights dinner is

Barramundi tandori.

[Ken L]

More success !

Went out last night with Scott (The English/South African guy mentioned above) and we rather outdid the locals. I only landed one fish of 12lbs but lost three including one beast of well over 25lbs. Scott did rather better and although he only got two solid hookups, he landed both fish for a brace at 19lbs and 22lbs. Only two other fish were landed between the 12 other guys on the beach.

 

Tonight, we managed to cram in a short two and a half hour session between sunset and a meeting in the pub. We both had hits to the lures but I got the only positive hookup and landed a fish of about 9lbs. Again it was 1 fish between the two of us verses one fish between a dozen locals. The strange thing is, we tell them what we're doing and they just look and say "No, that won't work".

 

We're madly tring to make the most of my few remaining days out here and I'm really not looking forward to comming back to the cold weather and flooded rivers in the UK.

[billy5000]

Hi all

 

sounds like its great fun(hit/or miss)

 

so get a monster for us and some monster piccys:)

 

time for some steel trace:)

 

 

i wanna be there:)

 

have fun mate

 

sg

[Elton]

How the other half live, eh?

 

Sounds like great fun....don't blame you for wanting to stay!

[Ken L]

time for some steel trace

The biteoffs occured whilst bait fishing and although wire is an option, bait presentaition then becomes an issue. No such difficulties with lure chucking and in fact, one of the successfull strategies has been to ditch the wire in favour of a mono leader (I'm using 50lb Drennen Greased Weasel) which is attached to the braid with a double uni knot. No swivels cracking into the tip ring at night and a significantly improved number of bites.

I probably wouldn't do it by day when the toothy critters are on the prowel but at night, the only things that I've seen hit the lures are the Barra and although you might need to re-tie the clip if the trace gets abraided after a big fish, we've yet to have a break off.

 

 

 

How the other half live, eh?

Airfair = 450 quid.

Total expendature on accomodation, transport, food, beer etc for 6 weeks is about 500 quid. The biggest sting in the pocket was the three weeks unpaid leave that I tagged onto my three weeks of anual leave.

How does that compare with the cost of your recent jaunt matey ?

Mind you, it is nice to have a job that's flexible enough to allow me to do the unpaid absence thing at times of the year when there are traditionally lots of people in the office.

[Tony U]

Ken

Give us the low down on the lures you are using, also are you doubling your leader for the last few feet?

By the way I always put a rubber shock bead in front of the swivel to stop it damaging the tip ring liner.

[geffaz]

great reading mate! im back off to thailand in the begining of next year and gana pop over to goa to see a mate that runs a bar out ther! (also a fishing nut) cant wait to get amongst the fish u talk of!

[Ken L]

Tony.

One of the real eyeopeners has been the success of 4" rubber shads on heavy (1oz +) jigheads with saltwater hooks. I've tried plenty of swimbaits as well but don't really rate them. The best technique has been to cast them out, feel them hit bottom, twitch them up, crank them slowly for a couple of metres and then let them touch down again on a tight line - so that they swim down rather than drop. With the jigs, you feel a very definate thump as the lure hits bottom (and generate a nice fish attracting low frequency thud) but this didn't work as well with the swimbaits 'cause the rubber coating on the nose and the different weight distribution make it much harder to feel them touch down. These lures can also be cranked back steadily above the bottom and doing this got me a nice Mangrove Jack last night.

Another successful technique has been to twitch and crawl 4" soft plastic gubs along the bottom (this accouted for Scott's brace of fish) on the same or slightly smaller jigs.

With only one hook and a big weight to provide leverage during the headshakes and jumps, you do loose a frustraiting number of fish but when you're hooking five and six times as many fish as the locals, you still come out a winner.

You may recall that I was on the lookout for the type of jighead that I've been using (with decent saltwater hooks) a couple of months ago but I never did find a UK suplier at reasonable prices. As I'll be leaving the few that I have with Scott (he'll be travelling and fishing for the next 9 months or so) I'll probably have to put in a Bass Pro order for some more when I get back.

 

Another succesful lure has been 6" Bomber Long A's in both the solid and jointed configurations.

 

In almost every case, light coloured lures have outfished everything else (the exception being some black and grey grubs used by Scott) and I have one white rubber shad that's definatly getting to be a bit battle scarred. This isn't that suprissing as almost all of our fishing has been at night by moonlight.

 

If the oppertunity for plagic fishing for trevelly and the like presents itself (it hasn't really on this trip) I will use metal slices, pencil poppers and sub surface ripping lures but this definatly requires wire. Hopefully, we'll be up and about early tommorrow for a crack at this 'cause we have spotted a big flat rock with access to some deep water.

 

If there's one lure that I wish I had in my box, it'd be a big Rattlin' Spot type lipless crankbait.

 

The stuff that hasn't worked are the 6" Halco's that I packed. Great actions on them but their extreem boyancy just makes then to light to reliably cast any great distance.

 

OK, time to pick your brains a bit. Scott will shortly be off to Hampi (Vigayanagar) which is close to Hospet on the Thungabadra river. As I know you've dove a fair bit of Mahrseer fishing, can you recomend any fishing excursions for him that arn't going to break the bank ? He's found a couple of opperators on the net but they're kinda pricey.

PM would be most welcome (I can e-mail it to him) if you're not happy about posting it up on the board.

 

Quick edit: I forgot to add that I'not ding any line doubling or fancy stuff like that, just keeping it simple with 25lb flouro fireline knotted onto a 12 - 18" heavy mono leader and finished with a big Rosco snap link. I did start off with a longer leader but the leader knot knocked the liner out of my tip ring on the first night. I was fortunate that I was able to click it back in and carry on fishing (and secure it with super glue the following day) but I very quckly cut it back to 12 - 18" after that. The linkage I've been using is a Double Uni-Knott with 5 turns in the mono and 10 on the braid. The only thing that you need to be careful with is tightening it up slowly (else it gets HOT) and making sure that it's well lubricated with saliva.

Edited December 17, 2005 by Ken L

[Tony U]

Ken thanks for that

Remember a large rubber bead will stop the tip ring and knot problems with your rubbing leader.

I was thinking of trying rubber shads on my next tropical trip and it looks like you have made my mind up for me.

I have also bought some Storm realistic shrimp so I may give them a try in and around the mangroves.

Tony

[Ken L]

Tony. If you bought the same Storm branded soft plastic shrimp that i did (they have a sort of "hinge" in the middle) then pack some by all means but don't bank of good results - I never had a touch on one.

I reckon they'd be better for catching fish that are feeding on squid or cuttles than on prawns.

I do rate the DOA shimps though and there are several other similar hard plastic prawns on sale for the Aussie market.

 

Chears for the tip about the rubber bead. The knot that I used resolved the problem of reeling in in hard swivels and the like but I'll file that one away for my late night summer pike lureing.

 

Did you manage to pull any of those Karnataka hotspots out of the old fogging grey matter for my mate who's going to be out here for a while ? No good to me on this trip though, I'm now in Mumbai and will be on the plane back to the freezer tomorrow.

Edited December 18, 2005 by Ken L