MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 693 



towards the friendly shelter of the wooden piles. This is the greatest danger 

 with these fish, and though it certainly adds to the excitement of playing them 

 it helps to wear one's temper thin to lose perhaps four good fish in a day owing 

 to their rushing under the bridge and taking a double turn round one of the 

 piles. True, if a boat is moored handy below the bridge it is possible often to 

 drop into it and then to unravel the line, but even so many a good fish breaks 

 hook hold, while others go of with a favourite spinner and a few yards of trace 

 and line trailing behind them. 



But my fish is still well away in mid-stream, as, reaching one end of the 

 bridge, I laboriously climb the parapet and negotiate the 6 ft. drop to the bank 

 — no mean feat, considering that the strain must never be relaxed for an inst- 

 ant, since so bony are the mouths of the nair and bamin that many a fish ap- 

 parently well hooked tears himself free just when the fight appears over. Till 

 now my fish has shunned the public gaze, but, the restraint apparently proving 

 irksome beyond all bearing, he suddenly rewards us with two magnificent leaps 

 to the huge admiration of the throng of spectators now gathered upon the 

 bridge. During each leap my heart ceases to beat, continuing only when my 

 rod-top, dipping in salute, shows the fish to be still on. Whether the bridge 

 catches the fish's eye in mid-air I know not, but he now begins to move back 

 towards the wooden piles. But he is too late, as by this time some twenty 

 yards lie between the bridge and myself. Still, he fights gamely, and another 

 five minutes elapse before Ahmed proudly lifts him out — a nair of 101b. 



Hardly have I finished admiring my capture when a halloo from N. conveys 

 to me the fact that he also is fast in a fish. Clambering back on to the bridge 

 I find him in difficulties. His fish is less considerate than mine, having run 

 under the bridge and up the estuary, N. meanwhile — in imminent risk of 

 apoplexy — leaning over the rail with rod upside down. Luckily, though, his 

 fish, a 4^1b. bamin, is unable to fight for long against the powerful strain of 

 stiff rod and wire trace, and gradually is drawn back to below the bridge, 

 whence he is towed along towards the bank. Here, however, the sight of the 

 expectant Ahmed frightens him, and he makes an unexpected and violent rush 

 all but fouling one of the piles ; but, his last effort finished, he suffers himself 

 to be lifted out without more ado. Barely five minutes pass before I get 

 another run, the fish, a bamin of about 61b., making a dash of thirty yards or 

 more, and then one magnificent leap during which he and I part company, to 

 my sorrow. A short period of labour without result, then luck is with me 

 again, and a 71b. bamin proves amenable to the same tactics as sufficed for the 

 nair fish. 



Afterwards N. hooks a big fish, which incontinently takes three turns round 

 the piles under his feet and is loose, the nautical flavour of N.'s remarks 

 sufficing to put all the fish off their feed for the next ten minutes. His trace 

 and spinner are eventually recovered for him by a youth, who, after being 

 heavily bribed, succeeds in swarming down among the rafters and unravelling 

 the tangle. By this time the fish are going off the feed. Luckily for N.'s peace 

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