34 Circumventing the Mahseer. Chapt. iv. 



the drainage from rice fields, freshly ploughed and swamped for 

 the second crop cultivation. Similarly artificial colouring of the 

 water has on trout the same effect as natural colouring from 

 rainfall, and it is a semi-poaching dodge, never condescended to 

 by me, dear reader, to puddle a small stream, and then take them 

 out with a worm, and this at times when the day is so hot and 

 bright that they will not look at a fly. This peculiarity of the 

 Mahseer is more against good fishermen than it is against tyros, 

 because it is exactly opposed to all the experiences of the former, 

 and those who do know something about fishing in England 

 are consequently more likely to be on the wrong tack in India, 

 than those who know nothing or next to nothing about fishing in 

 genera], for they would naturally arrange to fish at the very time 

 when in India they are least likely to have sport. I have, how- 

 ever, tested this question pretty thoroughly, and am quite satisfied 

 that it may be laid down as a safe rule, that it is useless to fish 

 for Mahseer except in clear water; it must be at least so clear that 

 you can see the small pebbles at the bottom with ease in 4 feet of 

 water, and it may be as much clearer as ever you like. You need 

 not be the least bit afraid if it is as clear as crystal, indeed it 

 ordinarily is so through all the best fishing months of the year. 

 I have fished in vain with the water so far cleared after a spate 

 that I could see the small pebbles in 2 feet of water, and that 

 with great patience and diligence in known, good, easily com- 

 manded water, and with a large and very bright spoon, and yet 

 I only stirred two fish, and even they ran short, I conceive I 

 must, from knowing localities, have taken my hail very close to 

 their noses, and kept it dallying there provokingly, and that 

 even then they missed it from visual obliquity in the coloured 

 water. I am for bright water, therefore, and in this respect 

 the English fisherman must forego his old creed, and adopt a 

 new faith as fully as did the thorough going young scamp of 

 an undergraduate who, unable otherwise to find lit expression 

 for the radical change for the better that had taken place 

 in his resolutions, informed his friends that he had not only 

 " turned over a new leaf," as parentally entreated, but a 

 libraries. 



One mode of fishing for Mahseer there is that may be followed 

 in coloured water. I was not aware of it when the above remarks 



