FISHING IN INDIAN WATERS. 409 



Now taking for granted that all these obstacles have been overcome there is 

 still one last and great difficulty. This is the absolute and invincible repug- 

 nance that ninety-nine men out of every hundred have to touch the creature at 

 all. Cold-blooded and case-hardened as T am and have become by years of 

 worming, daping, &c., with all sorts of baits alive and dead, it was a long time 

 before I could make up my mind to seize the creature and hold him sufficiently 

 tight to put him upon a hook. But it had to Ve done, and eventually I got 

 over that difficulty ; but even to this day there are many unpleasant thincrs I 

 would much rather do. The stench he leaves behind on one's fingers hangs 

 about them for days in spite of even "Sunlight Soap," but once on, the effect is 

 simply magical. If the fish are anywhere about you have only to dape in their 

 neighbourhood. They appear simply rampant, and you can see them darting 

 forward for this particularly tasty morsel, nothing will keep them off it. I 

 remember one afternoon, with the ship anchored in the outer harbour at Port 

 Mahe, Seychelles, when a shoal of Hemiram2)hus came round under the stern. 

 Several of the fellows on board were trying to coax them but to no effect. I 

 had been rather busy all day and could not spare the time, but later on in the 

 afternoon having secured a bottle full of really lively, high and evil-smolling 

 cockroaches, I got into a small boat under the ship's stern and began operations 

 Nearly every cockroach accounted for a fish, and in about one and-a-half hours 

 I had landed into the small boat some twenty-seven of these fish — and a very 

 fine and even lot they were, from about 1 J to Iflbs. apiece. Of course there 

 was a general cry for cockroaches, but very few could be obtained off-hand 

 and even when they had been procured, few were thf re among the ano-lers who 

 cared to handle the loathsome beast. I know no better place for Hemiramphus 

 than the Seychelles and Andaman Islands. In Aden the Belone appear laro-ely 

 to predominate. For this a light single-handed rod only is required. Here 

 again I use my " Bickerdyke" with ordinary fine trout tackle, and best of all 

 for cockroach baiting is a very fine 3 hook " Stewart" tackle. Upper hook in- 

 serted in the thorax, middle in abdomen, leaving the lower hook loose hangino- 

 just clear and below the bait. No fish, as I have said, can resist this bait and 

 few escape the Stewart tackle. 



The one drawback to mullet and garfish fishing, as I have described it is 

 that the best of it is to be had during the hottest and stUlest hours of the day 

 and a breathless day with a burning sun usually produces the best result from 

 the fisherman's point of view. You ought to be careful in going out that you 

 are properly protected from the sun. It does not add to one's enjoyment to 

 feel a splitting headache coming on, or to feel one's neck, lips and nose smarting 

 under the effects of sunstroke. If it were not for this, or if perchance it could 

 be carried out in cool places and breezy weather instead of off the burnino- 

 rocks or from an open boat, then indeed would it be the dolce far niente of 

 sea fishing. 



