Fresh from the jungles of India, JB has a tale to tell.
Dawn after steaming dawn the same thing happens. As the Indian jungle begins to wake, enormous fish disturb the surface of the River Cauvery in the shallows a hundred and fifty yards across the water from us. These are monsters, mahseer, the world's most exotic member of the carp family. You can see them rolling, porpoise-like in frozen time. Some of the fish are in excess of a hundred pounds. But for a week, the penny doesn't drop.
Not that the days don't pass happily enough. There's all sorts of fun to be had on a fly rod hereabouts. Dave kicks off the excitement, wriggling along the branch of an overhanging tree to where he spots a murrell - a weird combination of an eels and a cod - hunting on the surface. He daps a grasshopper pattern on the surface and, in an explosion of spray, the fly is taken and the take is missed. You can hear his yell of despair back in camp half a mile off.
Later that day, Leo - our Dutch maestro - teaches him how to fish nymphs on a dead drift for small mahseer in a pool close to the camp. They're not big fish. One to two pounds is normal but even these fight like five or six pound rainbows on four-weight gear. And there's always the sight of much bigger fish cruising just that little bit further out in the deeper water.
The action here is exceptionally violent at twelve thirty each afternoon. It's then the kitchen staff come down to the bay and throw out all the waste from the lunchtime preparations. In go vegetables, rice, discarded chapattis and the entrails of endless chickens. The water boils with fish. Mahseer from two to twenty pounds hammer in to take part in the feast. Above, fish eagles and river terns swoop. Kites come in from afar. It's a maelstrom of activity. But the fish are desperately difficult to catch unless you hook on a lump of chicken fat! The best you can do is drift a mayfly pattern in the zone and keep your fingers crossed. You're keeping your fingers crossed you don't hook a fifteen pounder in truth. Then, it's bye-bye to everything.
I try to do my bit with the classic mahseer fly fishing approach. A Zane nine-weight outfit and big flies fished down and across through the rapids. But this year - 2008 - it just isn't working, not even close. You see, the water is being held back in the dams upriver to feed Bangalore. There's not the flow that the mahseer want and that's why they've drifted from the fast water into the deep, slow pools. I know I'm fishing okay. I know I deserve a take. It's simply that I'm working over all but fishless water. I'm in trouble. I don't know the pools well. I'm a fast water man at heart.
Enter John Woods. With just two sessions to go, John does exactly what I should have thought of myself. He gets his guide to coracle him across the legendary pool known as Croc Rock to those shallows where the mahseer are hunting each and every morning. It's edgy stuff. There are crocodiles all around but his eyes are on the crystal water. And he oh-so nearly cracks it. The mahseer are still there, still hunting. There's a fish just ten metres away from him and it turns when he puts his streamer fly a foot to its side. It follows, gaining, a bow wave of water. And then, at the last moment, with a ferocious boil it turns away and accelerates over the rocks and out of sight.
Of course, you could ask whether it would have ever taken. Or whether John would have landed it if hooked. But I don't care. I think in that single hour, John might just have turned the mahseer fly conundrum on its head. In years past, I've hooked fish of twenty, thirty and even forty pounds on the fly in the rapids and stood no chance. On these pools, a big hooked fish will be difficult but, surely, possible. Back in England, my mind is buzzing. I can't wait to get back. For the very first time, in truth, I think we've an answer to this, one of the last great challenges in world fly fishing.
IN FACT
The River Cauvery in the state of Karnataka, southern India, lies around two and a half hours by jeep from Bangalore. The fishing season runs approximately from the end of November to the end of March. Peak times are late December, January and February.
Most fishing is done with fifty pound line, multipliers, uptide rods and ragi paste. There is some spinning in the rapids. Fly fishing is frequently practised, however. My advice is to take two outfits. A ten-foot, four-weight is perfect for smaller mahseer and carp five to ten pounds in weight. You will appreciate fights like you've never guessed at before. Take a selection of big dry flies and all manner of nymph patterns. The book hasn't been written on this style of fishing so you'll really have to suck and see.
For the big mahseer - fifteen pounds plus - you have a choice of nine / ten-weight single-handed gear like the Zane or you can go double-handed. My own feeling - and experience - is that thirteen and fourteen rods tend to collapse under the pressure of a big mahseer. My gut feeling is a that the power of a nine-foot Zane is what is required. Floating lines have been the norm but it could be, in the deep pools, a sinker could come into its own. Streamer flies do provoke a response but remember you've got to replace standard hooks with 4|0 owners or hooks of similar strength. The first run of a mahseer really does have to be experienced to be believed.
The camp is taken by Angling Travel (www.angling-travel.com Tel 01452 813241 Mobile 07866 470238) for the first part of January. Thereafter, Angling Direct (info@anglingdirectholidays.com 01603 407596) takes over until the end of the season. BA flies direct flights daily from Heathrow to Bangalore. This cuts travelling time down to eight and a half to ten and a half hours in the air. A vast improvement from when connections had to be taken either in Mumbai, Chennai or Colombo.
