Report from the Himalyan Outback

Far-flung correspondent Misty Dhillon reports on early season Mahseer fishing in India’s Himalayan outback:
Yammuna Trip September 2006
Peter and self had been planning our annual “early post monsoon Mahseer trip” since a while now, debating between locations and other logistics for our trip. We finally decided on the river section and the logistics involved and intimated our local sources about the assault on the Mahseer this early on in the season, and in spite of the rivers fluctuating conditions from slightly high to very high and from milky green to murky as the rains would come and go we got going with the trip. .
Peter was not impressed by the waters conditions on arriving at river, as it was milky, though I disagreed with him and often told him that we would be ok and that we would have some good fish in the coarse of the week we would spend by the river.
Getting around to our favorite pools would sometimes be very tough as the forest cover after the monsoon were very thick, and in the past few days the villagers had had many cattle eaten by a large male leopard that had been in the vicinity, though that did not stop us from getting around though the jungles to remote pools.
On the third day Peter had a nice fish from the camp pool. It was landed after some twenty minutes and weight just over 24 lbs. Nice fish was photographed and put back.
In anticipation of conditions being tough we were equipped with all sorts of tackle to keep us busy, from canned processed baits, hundreds of flies, many many lure, soft plastics and smelly lures. Though when the going was touch only worms and pastes were working and we would pick up two to four pound fish regardless.
As the water cleared up towards the end of the trip I managed to pick up a nice 28 lber on a spoon from a remote pool, which I got to after quite a hike. This fish was taken just before a rapid and had me dancing all over the place, as it ran with all its might down river and I decided to follow as there was a significant presence of structural elements in the middle of this shallow section of river and as I had no one to assist me. Besides that I had a few nice fish on fly tackle towards the end of our stay at river.
Misty Dhillon
(Misty is a Himalayan fishing and fly-fishing guide and can be reached at: [email protected]; www.himalayanoutback.com; phone: 00919872806359)