38 Circumventing tlie Mahsecr. Chapt. iv. 



sensibly increased. Similarly, if the reader will waive his 

 prejudices for the fly, and will spin deep with a small fish as bait, 

 I will engage that he shall not only kill more, but also better 

 fish, than with a fly. I think 1 may safely say that if he can 

 spin as well as he can fly fish, he will kill three Mahseers 

 spinning to one with a fly, and that the total weight in pounds 

 shall be more than three to one. 



Still he may say that he prefers the fly, that he loves the 

 excitement of the swirl on the surface, and the rapid approximate 

 guess at the weight of the fish he has just missed, has all but 

 caught, and has at least had the pleasure of seeing, or better 

 still loves to form a rapid idea of the size of the fellow he is 

 well into, and is in for a fight with, and means to take all the 

 more pains about taming now he sees he is such a grand one. 



He may say he prefers the fly, and prefers it so much thai 

 he would rather kill fewer by that means than more spinning, 

 on the same principle as he would rather catch fewer with the 

 rod than more with the net. If so, by all means let hirn stick to 

 the style of fishing from which he derives most pleasure, and I 

 will admit that, besides the advantages already conceded, the fly 

 has this still further recommendation, that it can be thrown 

 further than a minnow. There are pools and runs the best 

 parts of which cannot be reached with the minnow, but that can 

 be well covered with a fly, and there are sometimes places in 

 which, from rushes or weeds, the water cannot be reached at all 

 spinning. For such occasions I always carry a fly collar in my 

 fly book, and bend it on till I come to ground where it can be ex- 

 changed again for the spinning tackle. 



But as there an- places where it is impossible to bring 

 spinning into play, so are there places where the river is so 

 overhung with forest on all sides that it is difficult enough to 

 «et to the water's edge at all, and impossible without a boat to find 

 room to throw a fly. In such places even the staunch advocate 

 of t lie fly will find it advantageous to have a spinning collar in 

 his pocket, readj for exchange till such time as he can revert to 

 his favourite lure. If he spins at all well, the result may induce 

 him to keep the spinning tackle on a little longer, and perhaps 

 may eventually convert him. 



But if ho still prefers the By, or at any rate wishes to use it 



