Ragi is a paste made from millet flour and water, and is usually seasoned with yeast or cumin. That’s the way local humans eat anyway. The form used as fishing bait has a different texture and a wide variety of flavors.

A food becomes bait

Sometime in the fairly recent past, someone decided that Ragi eaten as a staple could serve as fishing bait. Since it was too soft to stay on the hook for long, it was boiled until it was rubbery. The resulting ‘boilie’ proved a useful bait and, as with all great innovations, became one of the leading fishing baits used in India.

Most of the innovations revolve around flavoring being added to the basic paste to make the bait more attractive to fish.

Many believe that strong flavors pass through the water and attract fish. There are various scientific theories as to why this is so. Since India is the home of spices, there is no shortage of strong flavors, and most of these have tried their hand at Mahseer fishing bait at one time or another.

Curry powder, or more properly a seasoning (blending), it can be mixed before the boiling stage to create a strong flavor. Since few will actually know which spices have been thrown into the mix, this is a bit of a messy approach, though it certainly often works.

Garlic and ginger are regularly used in curry recipes. Both have been tried and tested as additives to mahseer fishing baits with some success. Some say that garlic salt works better than crushed garlic.

Some use that the best of the best is Fenugreekeasy to find in a good kitchen store and all over India.

There are several other commercial additives designed for home carp fishing that might be worth taking along and investigating. Strong fishy smells should do the trick, so anything from oily sea fish is worth trying.

It’s hard to be scientific on the subject of scents. Every regular angler has their own favourite, and can hint at the content, but will reserve the special components. Take the basic Ragi for the first time and then start experimenting until you build your own experience on it. Oh! and don’t forget other methods too. Mahseer will take live and dead baits and lures, so he too can have a good time experimenting with each of these.

When Ragi is used as a Mahseer fishing bait, a piece, the size of which can be as large as a cricket ball, is wrapped around a large hook. In the past this would normally have been a 7/0 treble hook. Today, as anglers become more aware of conservation measures, more and more opt to use a single large hook. Hooks have also evolved, with some like the Owner SSW Cutting Point series offering extra sharp points and carefully researched angles for easier penetration in better locations.

The correct Ragi paste delivered in an appropriate size has proven to be a great success for Mahseer fishing. The first time angler who wants to be sure of catching something can go down to ping pong ball sized baits. Those looking for a specimen to test their mettle can get as big as a cricket ball and hope this will deter all but the biggest fish, assuming there is at least one big enough to do the business. Your local fishing guide should be able to advise you – he just needs to make sure he has a variety of good quality hooks and the rest of the tackle to handle the battle that will follow a good catch.