Sportfishing - Flyfishing

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Flyfishing for mahseer is a game of endless patience and trial with few rules as far as the fish are concerned. The one thing common is the tackle used and regardless of size, it is still tough to land a mahseer on light tackle. Let's not forget some of the finest waters and beats that'll have you unwinding every technique to get to
where the fish are.
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Practitioners of the fly rod will find the mahseer to be most frustrating creature to come to grips with. When small, they'll happily attack anything that passes them by. When large, they'll inspect your lure to death without taking it. In most mahseer waters it is possible to see fish follow but not take. Call it age, wisdom or just plain testiness. There are, of course, conditions when it is possible to get a double figure mahseer to take and woe betide the angler running trout size tippets. In the course of our guiding we have run just about every lure through the best waters and have some recommendations which have bagged us some fish worth writing home about. All you need to do is to book a trip with us.

For many mahseer (next best thing to big mahseer), one needs to look at a well stocked river. Days of biteless frustration may make you throw away the rod and probably sound the guide out for lack of fish but you need to take a look at the fish to be sure they're there and the bitelessnes is just another one of the mahseer's perversions. Small rivers are usually home to more obliging mahseer and if you're fishing on expedition basis, just graduate to a larger one to really feel what a good mahseer does to a single handed fly rod..

One must also choose the timing well- no point arriving at water that's been fished for a while and certainly, no point fishing with baitfish imitations when the diet of the season is insects. Similarly, no point fishing insect imitations where the fish habitually raid the chilwa nurseries.

Best time for flyfishing:
December-April:
Clear waters in winter give rise to some superb hatches of sulphur mayflies and caddis. Local baitfish sizes reach upto 3' and these are what your flies should look like. An abundance of insects makes early spring a great time to be out with a single handed rod.

May-June:
Sporadic rains and dearth of medium to grow slows down the hatch but dragonfly nymphs become edible around now. Black mayflies, dragonfly nymphs constitute the better part of the diet but evenings see mahseer chasing chilwa, so a good baitfish imitation does good work.

September-October:
No insect life in the water due to monsoon flooding. Fish still hungry and take most anything. This is also a great time to test attractors and large nymphs.