Mistaken Identity - a fishy affair

Last Saturday, we started to fish from the pond. Along with the usual fish, we also had a fish locally called 'Tengra' 

Now, none of us had expected the 'tengra' to be there in our catch, as we had not put 'Tengra' fingerlings. Now, there was a chance that someone had contaminated our pond with 'tengra'. Unless . . . what we knew scientifically as Pangasius was locally called 'tengra'. 

Yes . . . we had put about a hundred fish fry of Pangasius in July 2013.

'Tengra' was a cheap fish which was commonly seen in the local fish markets, but quite unpopular. Cheap it was, and quite a blessing for families like ours where the children loved fish. The reason - - 'It had only a single bone and no small bones'. 

According to my staff, it was not as tasty as the 'rohu' or the umpteen number of carps, which according to me were all full of little bones. 

So off we are on a research on the 'tengra'. On googling 'tengra', it was obvious that what is commonly called the 'tengra/tingra' was a totally different variety. The common agreement was that what is commonly called 'tengra/tangra/tingra' is of a genus called Mystus - common varieties being 'Mystus bleekeri' and 'Mystus vittatus'. 

So, I've sort of come to the conclusion that what is locally caleed the 'tengra' is actually Pangasius . . . to zero in further - - Pangasius bocourti. 

I would like to hear from the experts. 

If I'm sure that this is 'Pangasius bocourti', it means quite a lot for us as we had put the fingerlings sometime in the first half of July, 2013. It's not even 9 months and we got 2 of them weighing above 1500 gms. We did not give them any special feed as is recommended.

They say that this fish is quite strong and therefore is quite difficult to catch. Maybe we would be getting more of this fish in the next catch . . . which should happen in two week's time.

The pale flesh of the fish. The only disadvantage is that the meat is quite soft . . .

Pangasius

Last week, we got some new type of fish which is being promoted by the Government of India. It's called Pangasius - the common name being Vietnamese Cat Fish.

Pangasius fry which we procured last week

You can read more about it in Wikipedia.  

However, the reasons which attracted me are much more . . .

1. The fish was being promoted by government of Jharkhand.

2.  They are touted to grow well in not that clean water.

3.  As you may have read, these fish reach a size of 1 kilogram in a period of 6 months, which is quite fast for any variety of fish.

4.  These fish have less number of bones which make them quite table friendly.

5.  The meat is quite tasty and ranks quite high with regard to consumption.

Yes, there is a risk involved. However, since we are doing it in our pond which gets completely dry at least once in 2-3 years, we can always phase it off if we feel that Pangasius is somewhat of a threat to the environment to the ecology. 

We wait with quite a lot of expectation from this new venture. And it could be the beginning of a new chapter in the history of inland fish farming in Palamu region. 

Snap of the fish being sold in a market in Vietnam (source - Wikipedia)