It is good to hear from our friend Harsh Rana based in the Himalayas who wrote to us telling us about an autumnal adventure chasing Golden Mahseer on the fly.
During monsoons, as the Himalayan rivers reach spate, Golden Mahseer start swimming upstream to reach feeder streams of major river systems and reservoirs for spawning. This fish migration continues from May to September.
September is an excellent month to fly fish for Mahseer because of the great post-spawn fish bite in the rivers accompanied with lush greenery adorned by the hills after monsoons and decreasing heat and humidity add up to make it one of the best times to be outdoors and fish in the Lower Himalayan rivers.
The Fishery
The river we fished is a perennial feeder stream to a big reservoir, Mahseer from the reservoir move in to spawn and feed on the ample baitfish population. Mahseer are especially aggressive feeders at this time of the year, stocking up after spawning and preparing for the winter ahead.
This is a relatively easy to access river and unfortunately due to its proximity to bigger towns and a burgeoning population, it is pressured from development activities like sand mining. The Mahseer here feed most actively at night (from dawn till dusk), after human activities seize, they move out from the safety of the deeper water of the Lake into the river.
The Fishing Session
We were a group of five anglers; I was the only fly fisherman (to start with). We reached our fishing spot at about 5 pm. After about half an hour of casting, rain clouds started to build up, I was very excited to fly fish after the monsoon hiatus, feeling that the rain might play spoilsport, I switched to an Olive Copper John to have some fun on small baitfish. In a short span of 10-15 minutes, I deceived around half a dozen Chilwa (Silver Baitfish).
It started to rain and all of us had to take shelter. Thankfully, we were able to commence fishing again in 20 minutes as the rain had stopped. After dark (close to new moon), fly fishing was a bit of a challenge but Mahseer were feeding everywhere, now I didn’t bring any crease flies or poppers with me on this trip, I was using a helmet head black wooly bugger which caught nothing, not even a bite whereas all the other guys had great action on conventional tackle. I was a bit disappointed to have missed out.
Next morning, we reached the river before dawn. Expecting a better session in the morning. I had switched to a Tandem Streamer rig and banked on my trusted "go to" patterns to produce. Once again, guys around me started catching Mahseer. I had been switching fly patterns and fruitlessly casting for over an hour. Then as the sun was rising, I saw a school of Chilwa (Silver Baitfish) cruising the shallows (the same fish that I had hooked using Copper John the previous evening). I immediately changed my fly to the closest imitation, a Silver Needlefish Pattern, the second cast out resulted in a hook up, this fish peeled out quite a lot of fly line from my hand, following an intense and visual tussle, a Golden Mahseer estimated to be about 7 to 8 lbs was landed. There’s no better way of being reminded that Matching the Hatch is a fundamental principle in fly fishing.
Immediately after releasing the fish above, my friend and angling guide; Sabir Manshahia also switched to fly tackle and within 15 minutes, a similar sized Golden Mahseer was enticed on a Silver/Olive Needlefish pattern.
After having established some fly patterns for this stream, we landed just as many Mahseer as the rest of the group did with conventional tackle.
Waters and Tactics
We had caught Mahseer on the fly from literally everywhere on this trip, i.e. structure very close to the bank with ankle deep water to the fast water of the rapids and to the deeper pools close to the river-lake confluence. I will recollect one particular fish; it was a deep pool with a boulder in the middle. It was hardly 15 feet from the bank, a typical trout fishing like scenario. I cast the fly across to swing it by the boulder and time was about 8:30am since it was getting bright, instead of stripping the fly line I twitched the rod hand to impart more movement with the limited fly line, I got a reaction strike from a junvenile Mahseer in the first 4 to 5 attempts.
Veteran Mahseer conventional anglers have long enjoyed success using various minnow plugs which trigger the bigger fish to strike (good side to side movement and sound), and that’s what led us to try out various Streamer Flies tying them with a Kreh’s loop knot and throwing them on a Sinking Fly line (Sink Rate: 7 IPS). It sometimes does get snagged on obstructions but covers the water column really well. Not to mention has been quite productive on Golden Mahseer.
Mahseer fly fishing is still an evolving sport; as we keep trying out different tactics getting limited to good results, it is very much a work in progress. There are various ways of targeting these fish and they can be at any depth or structure from the skinny water on the banks to rapids or the deepest pools, they will challenge your casting and presentation abilities, it never gets predictable and that what makes them such an interesting game fish!
Ever wanted to try fly fishing in the Himalayas?
Contact Harsh via his website http://www.himalayanoutfitter.com/
http://www.facebook.com/himalayanoutfitter