Quite a few interesting species were in the paper. So planned a trip with the local hobbyists. Left on Friday (April 1st) at around 9 pm and reached Dharmapuri, the nearest town with decent accommodation around 1 am.
Our transport.
Since the cricket World Cup finals was on the same day and all the guys wanted to watch it, we decided to make an early start.
View en route.
Reached there and the place was infested with tourists. We couldn step into the water without stepping on someone s unmentionables.
First spot.
The first spot yielded some shrimps and Devario mabalaricus (???).
Macrobrachium Sp (???)
Cardinia Sp (???)
Thoroughly disappointed with the catch, we moved further upstream and saw see some big barbs darting around. We enlisted a few of the locals there to help us out. The resulting catch was much more interesting.
The second spot.
The habitat was the same except for the fact that there were lesser people around here.
The star catch. A 6" Puntius filamentosus.
Osteocheilichthys brevidorsalis
Osteocheilichthys brevidorsalis on the left and Barbodes carnaticus on the right.
A stunning Garra mullya.
Puntius sarana subnasutus (???)
Though the water was quite fast flowing, it was not cold at all. This is apparently cos it is impounded in many stages upstream.
There was no vegetation in these habitats. Very rocky with a lotta algae cover. Temperature, I guess must ve been around 29-30C.
We decided to move towards the shallower water to try and catch loaches. Spotted a few and managed to bag one.
Schistura denisonii
Schistura denisonii and Garra Sp.
Kinda looks like he s saying "I didnt expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition"
A few more metres upstream and a few more barbs
More Puntius filamentosus.
Forgot what this was.
Stolen from a fisherman's net for pics.
Tor Sp. (???)
A coracle ride later, we were back to our car.
Onto another equally important item now. Food!!! Hogenakkal is very famous for fresh fish fry. Unfortunately we didnt have the time to indulge ourselves. Twas getting extremely hot and the match was getting closer too!!!
The locals mentioned of another spot a coupla kms away where they claimed collecting fish was easier. The temperature was close to 40C!!! Our cold beer alarms had set off by now.
The final spot was almost stagnant. The water was quite warm. The vegetation here was confined to the banks.
The only new fish collected here was Etroplus maculatus. Swarms of 'em breeding around the banks.
Cirrhinus reba.
With all the fish packed and cosy, we returned back to our hotel to root for our respective teams. A World Cup final, cheap cold beer, meat all around. Need I say more???
We didnt spot any catfish here but the species reported from here are Mystus bleekeri,M.vittatus,M.cavasius (M.seengtee maybe???),Ompok bimaculatus,Wallago attu and Pterocryptis wynaadensis.
Definitely need to penetrate into deeper areas to collect something more interesting.
To part with, a few pics of the waterfalls there.
Edit : Got some more Id's confirmed.
Its a Mahindra Bolero.