Dream Fish Idea #1: The Golden Mahseer

A friend handed me a copy of The Drake the other day. He said if you subscribe to one fly fishing magazine, it should be this one. Flipped through and my initial take was that that was probably a true statement. Looked pretty cool - good substance, fewer frilly adds maybe. Best part was that it says in the top right corner, with respect to price:

five bucks
(ten bucks for bait fishermen)

Good chuckle there.

Anyway, one of the snippets was a pic and brief caption of a Golden Mahseer. It was touted as "The World's Biggest Carp." A tagline like that demands attention, and thus some Googling was completed.

According to India Angling the word Mahseer means "The Big Mouth." Right on there. They go on to describe it as a coldwater fish... kind of portraying it as a trout-like buglemouth. Its geographic range is a subset of the rivers that have their sources in the Himalayas.

Trip to India should occur. It could be a multi-purpose trip. Culture, history, food, hiking and fishing. Sign me up.

Anyway - Google around a bit and read up on this cool fish. I need to study a bit more myself.

Go here for more on that tagline from The Drake and the story of the guy who landed a 27 lber on the fly. His claim is that "you'll have a difficult time finding a harder fighting freshwater fish anywhere."

Another article that discusses fly fishing for the GM.


One final note is that "Fishing is stictly prohibited during monsoon as it is the breeding time for the fish." No problem complying there it would seem.