Angling Tour
Not many anglers and fishing enthusiasts realize that India with its abundance of coastline and inland waterways makes a perfect destination for all types of angling and fishing holidays. The country with its dozens of rivers and thousands of streams offers unlimited opportunities for the anglers to opt for sport fishing and angling. The adventurous settings for angling and fishing ranges from the majestic Himalayan valleys, snow-fed streams and high altitude lakes to the wide coastal stretches of the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. While m ajor rivers like the Ganga and its tributaries, the Yamuna, the Brahmaputra, the Mahanadi, the Krishna and the Kaveri are home to a wide spectrum of fish, including mahseer, rohu, katli, and trout, the coastal waters lapping the shores of peninsular India harbor marine sport fish such as mackerel, marlin and sea bass . With an estimated 50,000 km of waters- Rivers, streams, and lakes included- and an additional 3,000 km of coastline, one can fish here all the year around.
Get the ultimate angling experience - Fish for Mahseer and trout in India
Know Your Fish - The Mahseer : The 'Mahseer' rightly called as the `King of Indian sport fish’, is one of the fiercest fighting freshwater game fish ever known. Belonging to the Order Cypriniformes, Family Cyprinidae, the Mahseer also considered as the tiger among the fishes, derives its name from the Sanskrit "maha" or great, and "seer" or "sher" the tiger.
Once the favorite game fish - the "Indian salmon" - of British sportsmen : in the prime of the Empire, the Mahseer comes in a spectrum of colors ranging from deep burnt copper, through gold, silver, dark black and is a natural inhabitant of Indian waters found in rivers situated in the Himalayan foothills in Northern India, in North Eastern India, and in the hills of Southern India.
A migratory fish that can be found up to an altitude of 2,500 ft above sea level, a Mahseer can reach as long as five-and-a-half feet in length with a maximum recorded weight of about 50kg (over 100 pounds). Often compared against the well-known Salmon, for its sporting competency, the Mahseer has overjoyed generations of anglers and time and again lived up to being called the "mighty Mahseer".
Conservation : What makes fishing and angling in India an exhilarating experience are the variousconservation projects that are associated with it.
In recent years, human proximity has proved to be a bane for the mahseer stock. Multifaceted dangers posed by over-exploitation, uncontrolled fishing and destructive fishing devices as well as construction of a series of dams, barrages/ weirs across the rivers are threatening this 'king of the fishes' by acting as physical barrier to this migratory species, tending to prevent their access to their usual breeding and feeding grounds. Also indiscriminate hooking, netting, dynamiting and electrocuting have also greatly affected the mahseer availability in the State’s rivers and streams. Furthermore, due to reduced availability of large mahseer in the streams, fishing pressure on juveniles is on the increase with the result that streams earlier assuring a bountiful harvest have started giving a dismal picture. What’s even worse is that even the declared State’s sanctuaries have not been spared.
This realization has made both the State as well as the private players’ involved in the mahseer fishing adopt some action plan for the rehabilitation of mahseer stock in lentic & lotic waters.
While the government has set down a series of regulations regarding the choosing of fishing sites to the amount and type of fishes to be caught to studying migration patterns and setting up fish sanctuaries and hatcheries in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, the private players are also doing their bit to help conserve the 'King of Indian sport fish’. From making the locals aware of the status of golden mahseer to taking their help in apprehending poachers and putting a stop to dynamiting ; from granting them employment as gillies, guides and campers to employing watchers and beat guards to patrol certain sections of rivers and from encouraging anglers to set the fishes free after weighing and photographing them to earmarking funds for village welfare committee , everybody is doing their bit to this beautifulfish.
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