The River Cauvery in Southern India is a fantastic destination for the travelling angler who wants an exciting adventerous holiday, in a truly wild river valley. One man who has pioneered fishing on the Cauvery near Sangham, is the well known angling guide Dave Plummer. He has been escorting, and guiding anglers to this destination since 1991.

The wildlife and the scenery, within the stretch of Cauvery at the Galibore Camp is breathtaking. There must be few places in this world where you can be living in close proximity to wild elephants, large crocodiles, monkeys, snakes, wild boar, eagles, kites and vultures, and also be fishing for the undisputed king of freshwater fishes, the mahseer! This is in essence the reason why many English anglers annually travel 6000 miles in pursuit of this large powerful fish.

The mahseer lives within a vast range of habitats across the Asian continent. For this reason, many sub species have evolved to deal with the climatic differences of there distribution. The common species up in the north of India is the Himalayan Mahseer or "Barbus tor pututora", which has attracted a lot of interest from anglers worldwide. However the Himalayan Mahseer has suffered dramatically over the last 50 years, from a consequence of over population, pollution, dynamiting, and poaching. As a result the fishing in the north is now a shadow of its former self, and the big fish which were once present, have now almost disappeared.

In the south of India lives the Humpback Mahseer or "Barbus Tor Mussullah". Unlike the Himalayan Mahseer, this species is non migratory, and grows larger than its northern cousin. The Humpback Mahseer is common within the Cauvery River, and in places it is now protected from dynamiting and poaching, and for this reason the mahseer within these protected stretches are now beginning to return in numbers.

Many years ago, from the 1880's onwards, as a result of the British colonial rule , a hunting revolution evolved in India, which continued for 60 years. As a consequence, mahseer fishing became a pastime for many British residents in many parts of India, during this time and many big fish were caught! The River Cauvery had many large mahseer living within it during this period and the catches of fish from the Cauvery and Cubbany rivers in this region, have been well documented.

However the fate of the Humpback Mahseer was to take a turn for the worse. After the second world war, dynamiting, and poaching, were to cause a drastic decline in the numbers of mahseer in the Cauvery and Cubbany rivers. But today the mahseer on the the River Cauvery at least, are beginning to return in numbers, and on certain stretches, the fishing has almost returned to the good old days!