My First Angling Adventure in Karwar Waters

It's worth experiencing the nature at this tiny coastal town in India.

My transfer to Karwar was not a surprise to me. I was mentally prepared for the the same and updated my bucket list accordingly. At the same time I was happy to get away from the madness of synthetic life style and be close to mother nature. The only thing which bothered me was preparation for my son’s movement abroad in that secluded location.

After few initial gruelling days of settling down, I finally managed to fix up my angling gear and venture out to new coast. It was water all around and I was ready to fish.

It was a tropical weekend and on a semi hot and mildly sticky Sunday morning, I loaded my fishing gear in my vehicle. My rig was simple — an eight feet UglyStic spinning rod fixed with Okuma 4000 Azure reel loaded with 30 pounder Kastking braid. I carried my tackle box with assorted lures mainly containing minnows and poppers. The nearest road-head was just half an hour drive from my place and I had to walk around a mile on a crisp clean beach to reach the spot where the sea was getting into a creek.

The eastern sky was painted pink and sun was about to rise. Couple of rocks were sticking out of water and number of huge natural boulders carved smoothly by innumerable tidal movement made the spot appealing. Flocks of birds are were feeding on the silver minnows near the adjacent beach. I was really excited to be there. I kept my gears on the boulder and stood for couple of minutes to catch up on my breath. Gusts of cool breeze were hitting on my face. Smell of the moist salty air and sound of the waves breaking at adjoining beach were giving me angling nirvana.

I was ready for my first cast with hopes tied at the end of the line. After rechecking the joining tackles and drag, I threw my first cast. Oh! No! A bird’s nest! Huge wind knot. This was just not expected. It shouldn’t be happening to me. I had checked everything and followed every guideline. Anyways, with a dismay I started untangling the line patiently.

As the line was dry, I realised that the mess was not that bad and I could free the line pretty easily though it took me a while. All this while I could see the sun like a big orange hallo popping up behind me. I had to hurry up, I wasn’t going to let these knots ruin my first fishing outing at Karwar.

I was on my foot again after recovering myself from the knots horror. This time I fixed a two ouncer minnow and started throwing into the wind. I realised, the weight of the lure was the main reason coupled with freshly wound dry line for that nasty wind knot. I have not gone out for fishing for almost couple of years and it took some throws to un-rust my casting skills. Slowly but steadily I was gaining confidence in my casting.

The water had started to rise. I checked up the tide table — it’s three hours for the high tide and I could observe that the current was inward and pushed water in to the creek. I could also notice some activities in the flow. But there was not a singe bite or nudge almost after twenty odd throws. I was loosing my patience but not my hope. I changed my lure to a 11mm green popper sourced recently from a Chinese site. It popped less in the water but made a zigzag wake behind. I was happy with its movement on the rising tide.

As the luck would have it (the beginners luck), I started getting hits on my lure. It appeared that the fishes are rushing inside the creek and just trying to flick the moving lure. Every cast was returning with some nudge or hit but without a bite. This continued for almost an hour and I was almost losing my hope for the day. And then… Whoff! Fish on!!

I just didn’t know how to react. It was surely a huge one and pulled my line like from a kite-spool along with the current into the creek. The hit was certainly massive, something that I was never used to. The only thought that came to mind was to tighten the drag slowly which I did. The pull became tighter but slower. I was at that location for the first time and was not aware of the surrounding. The fish was still pulling and I couldn’t event start to reel in a yard of line to my spool.

Suddenly the pull stopped. And it stopped dead. I just couldn’t pull the line. Probably it was a grouper who has the tendency to go around rocks in bottom and sit still. I suddenly felt need of a partner. The serenity and loneliness I was enjoying till now looked all gone with the line. I kept the tension on the line like a good angler and tried to approach the bent while reeling in the line. It appeared that the fish had decided to head for the rocks inside the creek. I started giving guitar like jerks to the line but the fish however had different plans for me by hugging close to the rocks.

My mind ran out of ideas. The swell and current were not in favour of approaching the rocks. Moreover, with the new topography I was not sure of the bottom. Should I snap the line from my end , tie it there to something and come back during low tide? I should have asked the seasoned anglers in station before venturing out alone.

Suddenly, a jerk on the line got me in to action again. I tried to heave in but the line just didn’t give in. I was not carrying any additional rods and at the same time, I did not want to loose my line, leader and the lure. I tied the rod around a small tree and tried calling of one of my colleague who had already spent close to five years fishing in Karwar waters. But as the luck would have it, there weren’t any mobile connectivity and I decided to come back leaving my rod there. Might be a foolish decision, but I just wanted to get back there with some help.

I almost ran on the mile long beach and drove my car directly to my colleague’s place. By the time I reached his house, sun had already turned white and my colleague was getting ready to go to the weekly farmers market in the town. I rattled the whole incident to him in one breath and sought his help. He just hopped into my car and we drove back to the site. We didn’t loose any time in between but it took more than an hour getting back on the spot. By the time we reached the spot, current had become negligible and water was almost full and still. But I could see the line is loose and swinging with the wind. I just pulled it and it came off freely without any resistance. I had lost my lure, leader, part of the line and all my hope for the day.

I came back collecting my rod with a dangling line like my dangling spirit, disheartened but with couple of fishing rules for Karawar — Never go for fishing alone and always be cent percent ready to hook the biggest catch of your life.