Robson's Mahseer

I don't really have a problem with the programmes and can understand why Channel 5 are showing them. My only gripe is Robson saying he's an expert angler when he so obviously isn't and last night proved it.

He went to catch a mahseer from a Sri Lankan river and saw three fish caught that answered to that name.
Now he may well argue that he was only calling them mahseer because his guide said that was what they were called. Fact is none of them were mahseer, they were definitely all Puntius rather than Tor, so Barbs, and...
two of them were obviously different species. They weren't even the same kind of fish!

He was merely repeating what he was told they were and what the Brits called them in colonial times. Mahseer come in many shapes and sizes - the Southerners (Kaveri River fish being the best known), the Middle India and some parts of the North and North East fish (deeper bodied, smaller mouthed, less predatory, growing to probably forty pounds tops with a double being a good un - known as Barbus tor tor in the old days, but believed by many to be a puntius now); the Northern or Himalayan mahseer - longer, slimmer, more barbel-like than the Southern "whales" - tor putitora in the old days, a true Barbus mahseer); then another mahseer, the old "Barak Mahseer" of Assam and old Burma, which isn't a mahseer...

Confusing isn't it? Even for a very experienced mahseer angler...

An Indian friend of mine blames the English for the name mahseer in the first place, as in one of the areas where the English first started fishing for them (around Bengal i think he said) the name for fish (any fish not just the barbus species) used by the local fishermen was 'mashee'. He thinks it highly likely that it then became mis-pronounced by the Brits and became mahseer. Of course there are the other theories that it comes from Hindi for big head (maha seer) or Sanskrit for tiger of rivers (mah sheer) - those who have read Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book will probably recognise the word sheer from his name for the tiger in it, i.e. Sheer Khan, basically meaning tiger Khan. Apologies for getting a bit side-tracked there!

As Paul has said there are many different varieties of mahseer, I'll be hoping to catch an interesting looking one in Borneo later this year.

Personally, I think Robson ruins what could be a very good programme. He's a cock - so I don't watch it.

Alan Taylor 3 said:

Personally, I think Robson ruins what could be a very good programme. He's a cock - so I don't watch it.

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Well said !!!
He hasn't got a clue about anything fishing related and seems to think that acting like some sort of american whooping and swearing is what we want to see .

I have only watched it once though when I saw what that last episode was about and wanted to see the fish but the thought of having to put up with him patranizing some locals in the process put me off.

On the bright side if he is an expert fisherman I must be a meastro!

I happened to watch episode being discussed, it was the first time and I have to say, will be the last time i will be watching Mr green's futile attemps at angling. What a plonker!!