PlanetCatfish.com

Hi all,

Jools, Antti and me are sitting at an internet cafe in Siliguri (north Bengal) typing this right now. Fishing's been interesting, but not been that good. Loads of interesting stories to tell, though, plus we've taken tons of pics between the three of us.
Jools has gotten his feet wet with Asian catfishes and the first one he caught was a Pseudolaguvia. I'll let Jools have his say now.
Catch you all later.

From the "two Americans and one Nepali"

Yup, HH is sitting right behind me in this internet cafe which is laid out more like a peep show parlour. Anyway, the fishing has been not too bad, pretty good if we were loach freaks. Have seen or collected many common Indian exports; a few great photos once we get back.

Someone ask HH about "Gorilla"...

Jools

Greetings from Siliguri!

No leeches but lots of loaches! Maybe a few pictures of the "Gorillas" will find their way here also. I've had an interesting conversation about this subject, somehow HH and Jools found it so amusing.. Well, this and lots of other stories coming later.

Antti

Well, no leeches thus far and only I appear to be attracting the mosquitos. Got some great habitat pictures to go with the fish pics, probably the best is Pseudecheneis - some really beautiful ones! Now go look that up becuase I will be when I get back.

Also, someone tell Medakawe got Hara and a whole bunch of odd Erethidtids too.

Aside from catfish we've got more loaches, I caught a zebra danio which was nice, a fewq gouramis, glass fish, badis (including the mini -red jewel one) and more spiny eels than you can shake a pakora at.

On the subject of food have eaten Mystus bleekeri, Wallago and Sperata. The first was in a strong mustard sauce and may have been to blame for Antti have an "afternoon off".

Jools

Don't forget the beautiful large yellow Amblyceps with a truncate caudal fin we caught. I think that was as good as the Pseudecheneis.

The Scarlets were beautifull as was the location. Also B. badis and B. ruber occur here. But since this is a catfish site, i just want to recommend Wallago, yum! Nothing wrong with the Mystus either, the sauce was perhaps a bit too much though...
Food aside, the Pseudecheneis were magnificent catfishes indeed! Hopefully a couple of nice species will come our way still.

Antti

Silurus wrote:Don't forget the beautiful large yellow Amblyceps with a truncate caudal fin we caught. I think that was as good as the Pseudecheneis.

WHATEVER!

coelacanth wrote:

Silurus wrote:Don't forget the beautiful large yellow Amblyceps with a truncate caudal fin we caught. I think that was as good as the Pseudecheneis.

WHATEVER!

Ah, jealous eh? You try spending hours on the toilet after getting sunburnt! We return to Kolkata today, one visit to Andrew's exporting station / farm and then a day's collecting Tuesday. I return Wednesday, so expect pics etc by the weekend.

Cheers,

Jools

Wish I was there!

Can't wait to see the pictures!

Cheers,

Looking forward to the Pictures! Chuck a few Loach ones in for me Please!! Hehe!



G.

Yeah, second that request to chuck in a few loach pictures!

Hi again,

Finally back home and reasonably alive.. Here's one loach in it's natural habitat, the "roof of his house" lifted away though. Probably Acanthocobitis botia.



Catfishes i leave to those with more experties, lots of them coming i think!

Antti

Elspeth wrote:Yeah, second that request to chuck in a few loach pictures!

OK, here is the gorilla loach. This is funny because we were taught this, the local name of the fish, by a drunk chap who did not have many other words in his vocabulary that night. Even when conversation veered off the subject he would raise a finger to the sky (or my laptop) and proclaim <br><br><font size=48>GORILLA !!!</font>
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Jools

It's an interesting looking loach, what kind of habitat is it from?

Great to see the Zipper loach in it's natural habitat! And what a gorgeous Schistura species there Jools.

Cheers!
Graeme.

It's not a Schistura, but an Aborichthys, probably A. elongatus.

S. Allen wrote:It's an interesting looking loach, what kind of habitat is it from?

Fast flowing, shallow, cool water over large and small rocks, no vegetation.

Jools

Ahh yeah i found it here http://filaman.uni-kiel.de/Country/Coun ... =elongatus

Lovely

Graeme.

Interesting. We have a couple and were wondering what they were.

Rusty

...and the Nepalese name for nemacheiline loaches is garolla. It just sounded like "gorilla" to us.