Mahseer Fishing and Fly-Fishing in The Himalayas

 

The Himalayas are considered the true land of adventure; overwhelming landscape; spectacular views; rich in history, art, tradition; and generous in its innumerable possibilities for “the adventure of a lifetime”.

 

Essex Anglinmg Leisures Himalayan trips aim to deliver a complete outdoor experience to the traveler. Our policy of ‘attention to detail’ allows you to enjoy the experience without having to worry about the myriad of details that go into ensuring a safe and smooth expedition. Besides fishing, trekking and rafting (our three areas of specializations), we offer a variety of other activities like, rappelling, trails for birdwatchers, kayaking, wild life excursions and experiencing local culture.

 

Our attitude is based on admiration for all that the nature has to offer to us. The Himalayan Outback’s goal is to enable our guests to enjoy every aspect of the outing that they take with us. We hope that our love for the outdoors is reflected upon every aspect of your journey in the Himalayas and leaves you with some great memories of “the adventure of a lifetime”.

 

A sportsman who is looking for some exotic fishing or fly-fishing travel is always pleasantly surprised to hear of fishing and fly-fishing possibilities for a different game fish species, especially when it is to be found in the magnificence of the rivers that drain the Himalayan Ranges.

 

The sought after sport fish in these rivers is called "The Himalayan Mahseer", a species not a lot of us are familiar with. It is a species indigenous to the Indian Sub-Continent and to ones pleasant surprise it does take very well to artificial baits, and can grow to weights in access of 70 lbs. Furthermore, the Mahseer are a species that have always been regarded as one of the hardest fighting freshwater species of fish.

 

"The Goonch" is another indigenous catfish species that is to be found in the same waters as the Mahseer. This illusive catfish is perhaps one of the only catfish species in the world with teeth and can grow to 400lbs!

 

The Himalayan streams are also host to the Trout, which were introduced in the rivers of Kashmir in the turn of the twentieth century. Over the years the fish have been introduced in many high altitude streams and lakes throughout the Himalayas - both Rainbow Trout and Brown Trout are to be found there.

 

So when you call or email us at Essexc Angling Leisure we'll give you a choice of various rivers you could fish with us in, and depending on your priorities of whether you'd like to fly-fish, or target the trophy fish in the remotest waters of the Himalayas we will help you decide the river and the right timing for your trip.

 

Misty Dhillon heads our fishing operation. Misty and his team have discovered the potential of the rivers that drain the Himalayan Ranges and have found some of the best fishing and fly-fishing waters and, over the years, have produced monster fish for our guests. Our fishing team is continuously in the process of discovering newer sections of rivers and lakes and developing the product to offer our guests more unique fishing and fly-fishing adventures in the Indian Himalayas.

 

The Himalayan Standard: We limit every trip to a small number of anglers in order to maintain the exclusivity of the product.

 

The Himalayan Float Trips: Every year we guide our guests on a number of float trips in pursuit of the Mahseer, these float trips are very effective in getting our guests to the best waters, and help produce some of our best fish every season. The float trip, depending on the program, could cover anywhere from 20 to 120 miles of water over a period of 4 to 14 days.

 

Some of our trips involve mild trekking to get to remote locations. Needless to say that these fishing adventures are developed around plenty of cultural opportunities, let it be hiking to a remote nomadic village during a float trip or then visiting some ancient shrines and heritage sights along the way.

 

The gear used on the trips is state-of-the-art - let it be rafts, kayaks, other safety gear or then the fishing and fly-fishing tackle, all of which is imported from the United States. All tackle is provided on our trips, and our tackle inventory includes Spey rods, bait casting reels, all types of lures or then specialised flies of fly-lines for Mahseer Fishing.

 

These trips are manned with many of our most experienced staff that understands the importance of "Safety First" and the importance of making our guests experience the fishing adventure of a lifetime.

 

The Fishing Gear:

 

Mahseer fishing requires a large amount of specialized tackle, all of which is impossible to obtain in a short period of time - different lures and flies for various rivers is required as feeding and behavioral patterns differ vastly from river to river. Specialized trebles and fly hooks - even the terminal tackle and rings should be of the highest possible standard. Indeed, more Mahseer are lost to tackle failure than due to any other reason.

 

In order to save you the hassle of shopping for every bit of tackle before coming on one of our expeditions we make available a lot of specialized gear that is required in order to make these expeditions successful.

 

The Himalayan Outback provides all the tackle needed to go after the Mahseer on our trips – both on fly and on spinning.

 

Our inventory consists of a number of rods and reels – both spinning and fly-fishing (Daiwa, Shakespeare Ugly Sticks, Cabela’s, Zebco, Penn, Shimano, Abu Garcia, Loomis and others).

 

We also provide the terminal tackle, fly lines, leaders/tippets etc. Live bait and paste baits are also available during the trip.

 

A complete armory of tackle is carried on these trips so that we do not leave any thing to chance - including hundreds of lures and flies.

 

Waders are not needed on these rivers, as the water is 11 to 15 Celsius, though felt sole booties or shoes are recommended.

 

Fly-fishing gear: We have an assortment of #8 weight rods for fly-fishing for the Mahseer - these rods are loaded with sinking fly lines and 150 yards of 20 lbs backing.

 

You may bring along flies you think will work. We generally carry a vast collection of streamers and a lot of material for tying flies in the event we do fall short of anything.