Ken L

OMG ! I must have been **** that night........ Newt. I think that was one of Ken Davidson's underwater shots. Sadly, it's not one of mine - although I might have ended up with her sister one night. Sam. You forgot WET. And this country is only god forsaken in relative terms. India has way more gods that we do so there's always going to be one or two looking out for a bit of decent weather. BTW, Still laughing about the "Hanuman-o-gram".

The sedona was designed as a budget reel and after a little use, it shows. I'd be inclined to go with the Okuma. I have to say that I'm rapidly loosing faith in Shimano though. I've now had two Stradics (a 1000 and an 8000) and a 1000 size sustain that have needed servicing after just one season. I think my next batch of high end spinning reels will be from another manufacturer.

I just reduce the size of the image and then upload it directly to the site but I'm sure Newts method works perfectly well with him being the techie wizard and all that. Scott e-mailed me the other day. I think he said he was flying out tomorrow. I suspect he's going to get his string well and truely pulled in the Andermans......

Hey, You better get posting some of the pics with you mugging behind a dirty great fish them mate. Seriously though, you obviously managed to make it back to Mumbai from Agra and Varanassi in time for your flight. Bet it was a rush though.

Thanks guy's. I'll use big shads on light gig heads if I have to but I much prefer the way that the weight is distributed on a swimbait for what I have in mind. I'm trying to selectivly seak out those big brarra as they move through a shallow water channel on the end of a sand spit at night and they have VERY good eyesight in the clear water. The Storm lures significantly outfished both hard baits and jig/shad combinations on the last trip but the hardware just wasn't up to the job. Strangely enough, on the previous trip, the spit was much longer (Different wind/tide conditions) and the extra weight of a jig/shad combination allowed them to outfish everything else in the deep eddy that formed just inside the spit. I've seen the Fox lures and they look good but might be a bit heavy. Anything that anyone can come up with will be greatly appreciated.

Swimbaits upto 5" or so are easy to source and cheap. Bigger than that and they start to get a bit thin on the ground and very costly. Can anyone recomend a souce of reasonably priced natural looking swimbaits in the 7 - 9" range ? Ideally, I'd like them to be either suspending or slow sinking like those in the storm range only bigger and with better hardware.

Ask the people that you want to quote..........

More Pictures The croc is an Indian Mugger or swamp crocodile of about 13 feet. The scenic shot is a view up the river taken at about 8 in the morning. The middle shot is the three fish that I had in 2 hours and had to keep on stringers until the guys got back from town with the (working) camera. The night shot is an 18.5lb Barra, a PB and absolutely delicious. Sometimes I come all over all Rex Hunt..... These two shots are individual photos of my 23.5 and 27.5 Mahseer. All the fish shown were taken on lures.

Some Pictures:

FOX. Would this be the same Mr Fox who'd proffessor of cunning at Shifty University ?

I've just found this http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/template...ch-results1.jsp which is interesting as it has better resolution and is cheaper than the Casio. Now that my cheapie is back with us though a clip up airtight sanwich box from Tesco is more likely to be the order of the day.

Whilst in India, I was happily taking my cheepo digi in the coracle and snapping away. Where possible, we would get up on the bank to photograph good fish and after taking pics of a mates second 20, he was a little clumsy getting into the boat and managed to all but sink us buy stepping in on the same side as me. After rescuing the tackle, I looked at the camera and it was well and truely knackered. On opening the battery compartment, I could litterally pour water out of the thing. I quickly took the batteries out and removed the card when we got back to camp. Data on the card was fine after an hour or so of drying out and I was able to play back the pictures on another camera but the camera itself was dead as a Dodo. Five days latter, it was still dead but a couple of days after that, the capacitors for the flash would charge up when the bateries were installed. Three weeks latter, nothing had changed and I was resolved to chucking it away but on the last day of the trip (5 weeks after the accident) I slipped the batteries in and was greated with charging capacitors and after a second or so, a lit screen and a message telling me that the date/time needed to be set. I didn't put a card back into it until I got home but sure enough, it now works fine. The moral of this story is buy a waterproof camera (The Casios are nice but pricy) but if you do get your cheapie wet, don't be to hasty to chuck it. Just let it dry out naturally and give it lots of time to recover. There is of course a second moral. It concerns being carful about who you go boating with in rivers containing large crocodiles - we were actually in a pool inhabited by a 13 foot male when the accident happened.....

Huge. Have you been taking hormone tablets ? I only ask because you tell stories the same way that every woman over 50 that I#ve ever met. Weired thing is, they all get upset when you stare at them and mutter "Cut to the bloody chase" under your breath....

Can't say I agree with culling seals. They were there long before anglers and comercial fisherman and as fas as I know, there hasn't been any dramatic die off of their predators (Orca's and Polar bears) to justify reducing their numbers. On the other hand, I have no problem with sustainably harvesting seals for their fur - so long as there are safeguards about killing them humainely. Just a language thing.

I almost just ordered a WMA/MP3 player for my sisters birthbay present from here http://www.play.com/play247.asp?page=title...321&g=409&pa=sr The only thing that stopped me was the lack of a mains charger which is bl00dy stupid for a machine with a 2Gig capacity. Does anyone know whether mains chargers with a USB style output are available ?

If you have half the fun we've had in India, you'll have a great trip. I'll probably be back next season so if you fancy topping off your Indian trop with a Barramundi or two, get in touch nearer the time. Even if I'm not in India at the same time as you, I can happily PM you some Barra tips.

Take it further. Would it be acceptable to offer cheaper life/car insurance to white drivers ? How about cheaper dental insurance for Asians ? Better yet, what hapens when insurance companies stort offering a 25% discount on life insurance if their DNA tests fail to turn up anything worrying ? I think that a lot of people feel rightly uncomfortable about the womens car insurance deals showing up at the moment. one price for all is the way we should go.

Appropriate really. Most Aussies agree that cane toads are a pain in the arse.

As said, the simple solution is to use a gadget that looks like a tape with a wire comming out of it and just plug in your auidio player. Sound quality is OK and if johnny chav comes along (assuming you've had the good sence to unplug everything and put it away), all he sees is a basic radio-cassete. The gagets are available from Argos, Toys R Us etc for about a fiver. Of course, if you have a CD multichanger, ods on you don't have a cassette slot in the machine.... You've said that youare planning on buying a CD player that has MP3 capability. This is a good solution and you can burn MP3 discs to play on it easily ? If you already have your music files in MP3 format on your PC, you can burn discs specifically for playback in the car and you will get about 140 tracks on a CD. I used Veritas 's software to burn mine but remember that you need to specifically opt to burn MP3 CD's because simply making a data disc and copying the files accross won't work. It's obvious but its also worth saying that this only works with MP3 files and you can't make MP3 discs from music stored in .MW, Ogg Vorbis or any other format without a lot of tedious format changing. FM transmitting media players sound like a great idea but I hear bad things about sound quality and they are of course illegal in the UK - although there are plenty for sale on E-Bay. Last time I looked there were no players about with a nice simple audio in jack on the fromt but it might be worth your while digging out the new Argos catalogue and having a look or having a chat with a guy at Halfords to see if something like thios is available.

Does anyone know of any readilly available, easy to use sotftware that can tke a JPeg photo and convert it into a cartoon style image that I can use to have empbroidered badges ?

These days, so much of my fishing is done whilst travelling that I've decided to buy travel rod blanks and have them custom built in Singapore. The overal prices should be comparable with factory built rods on the same blanks but they'll have the personal touch. For light and heavy spinning, I've decided on the StCroix GI70MF3 and GI70HF3 blanks as used in their excellent Tidemaster rods but I want another rod for fishing Poppers and BIG lures in the 2 - 5oz range and there is no extra heavy rod blank in the StCroix range. Can anyone recomend a reasonably priced blank and suplier for a three/four pice blank to build a 6.5 - 7.5 foot spinning/casting rod that'll cast 2 - 5oz ?

It is indeed India. The river is fairly sedate but does have short sections of shallow water/rapids that make portage of the coracle difficult. Crocs are certanly present and we saw Muggers (Indian Swamp Crocodiles) to 4m in length. These guys are not really known for being aggressive but can and will take people and livestock if given the chance. My real concern isn't about a croc intending to eat us though, it's about a teritorial dispute. In Australia, 90% of people attacked by freshwater crocs (another fairly docile species) get hit in the thighs whilst activly swimming and therefore horizontal in the water. It's thought that as the crocs will bite another croc intruding in their territory arround the vent, they are mistaking the swimmers for another croc and hitting them in the same place. Of course, Muggers are much bigger and a similar responce would put the teeth in my ar5e.....

We recently had chance to fish the cauvery for mahseer from a coracle and had a great time. Talk in now being bandied about about comming back next year with inflatable kayaks so that we can cover more water but the river contains crocodiles and I'm a little concerned that a crock might see the siluete of a kayak and think it's another crock in its territory - resulting in an attack. Does anyone have eany experience of fihing in waters containing crocs and is this a real problem ?

Wow ! Just had two weeks of Mahseer fishing on the Cauvery. The first week was pure frustration because we were limited to bank fishing and failed to land a single fish over 5lb becuse they would always find some way to do us. The second week gave us access to a proper cottage instead of a tent and a coaracle to fish from. We still had a fair few mangled hooks straightened split rings and busted 25lb lines but the odds were definatly in our favouir and we all caught plenty of fish over 20lb with the best bneing my fish of 27.5lb. Ragi has to be the single most overrated bait on the planet and although we had a few bites we only managed to catch one very small fish on the stuff - and it wasn't for want of trying. Lures on the other hand did the buisiness big style and caught us up t 5 fish a day until the very limited suply of lures that worked ran out. Unfortunatly, We agreed with the owner of the property that we wouldn't give any additional publicity to the location (we want to go back next year) and we have agreed amongst ourselves not to disclose exactly what lures worked (it was VERY specific) in case the fish get turned off them, so i can't give precise details here. What I will say is if anyone getas a chance to target these fish, leave nothing to chance. They will destroy 2x and 3x 1/0 trebles in a way that has to be seen to be believed, they wil rip hook hangers out of lures, they will unravel your split rings and generally test your tackjle to the max. We gave up on braid after having it destroyed by fish whilst bank fishing but with the coaracle, I'll be tempted to go back to it next time because you can get above the fish quickly and prevent them from doing you on rock bars and timber. Back to Goa tomorrow and I'll be throwing som heavily modified 6" Bombers at the Barramundi in an attempot to acttually land one of these 30lber's that keep on straightening my hooks.

There are no number quoted but three of the movies are available here http://www.play.com/play247.asp?pa=pfa&pag...R2&title=709608 and here http://www5.cd-wow.com/detail_results_2.ph...duct_code=18895 I've used both companis extensivly with no problems. There's also a good selectin here http://www.choicesdirect.com/searchresult....&ProductGrp=All I have used Choices with no problems as well but I've only had one order with them so far.