Day 3 - Burning up on the Saryu

Our camp is no less than spectacular here on the banks of the Saryu River.  This morning I fished right in front (look very carefully you’ll see me on bottom left and tops of our tents behind).  It’s a beautiful pool but in two hours I never touched a fish. 

Our original itinerary for this trip had us packing and floating out of the Saryu and down the Mahakali River today.  But the Mahakali keeps getting grayer and grayer from snowmelt at its headwaters in Tibet.  That being said, we made a group decision to remain on the Saryu for three more days.  We love this spot but we’re all a little disappointed as we are curious as to what the float down will bring.  We’ll just have to wait.

To change things up, Misty informed us we would fish upstream today and rest the confluence where we’ve been fishing the first two days.  That was a welcomed call and after breakfast off we went.

The runs and pools upstream looked spectacular.  We intended to hike up for
an hour then fish down, but the water looked so good we hiked for about two hours and perhaps five miles one way.  By the time we got started it was scorching hot and swinging flies in waist deep water was a dream.  That is when we started.  Two hours, four hours and five hours later, without even a touch from a mahseer it lost its charm.  Fishing absolutely stunk today!

By the amount of water we covered it’s amazing that the only fish caught was a small mahseer by Whitney.  But that’s the truth.  There were signs of local anglers and that may be the problem.  I found several set lines and even some pieces of a net.  It’s the way of the world I’m afraid.

In addition to the tough fishing we took on too much hiking for such hot conditions.  I’ll bet it was a ten miler in and out of the water over rocks in wading shoes.  It was a grunt.  We returned to camp tonight exhausted and ended up sitting in the river for about an hour after dark just cooling off. 

It’s back to the confluence tomorrow where we’ve proven to ourselves that there are some big mahseer.  Perhaps I can get revenge on the one that got away.

Being filmed doesn’t allow me to take pics.  A SPECIAL THANKS is in order to Jim Klug and Chris Patterson of Confluence Films who not only brought me on this trip but also provided most of the blog photos.

Again, please toss my old hotmail email address that I can no longer check and let’s reconnect at jeffcurrier65@gmail.com      THANKS!

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing