CHAPTER VI. 



HOW, WHEN, AND WHERE TO FISH FOR MAHSEER. 



' Give me mine angle ; we'll to the river there. 

 * • • » • "I will bel ni y 

 T:uvn\ Bnned t i — 1 1 ; my bended hoofa Bhall pierce 

 Their slimy jaws." — Siiakspkakk. 



Being provided with the right lure, be it ily or spinning bait, there 

 11 the question how to use it. SupiMi.se we consider the spin- 

 ning bait first, in continuation of our last chapter. How should 

 we spin, with the stream, against the stream, or across the stream ' 

 I ee who advocate spinning with the stream, or drawing your 

 bait in the same direction as the river is flowing, do bo on the 

 round as fly fishermen, namely, that all fish lie habitually 

 with their heads up stream, and that consequently you bring 

 youi bait down to them, into their mouths as they say, instead 

 of pulling it away from them up stream. But the cases are by 

 no means parallel. What is natural in one case is unnatural in 

 the other, and the secret of good fishing is so closely to imitate 

 nature, that the fish shall not be able to distinguish your bait from 

 its ordinary food. Though the fly lights, or mounting from the 

 hottom sits, on the water's surface, and is carried unresistingly 

 down the stream, the behaviour of the small fish which you have 

 to imitate is very different. It swims up stream just as much as 

 down stream; indeed, if it did not it would find itself down at 

 the sea in a single season. It swims across also, as much as up 

 and down. Certainly it does sometimes allow itself to drop down 

 st mini tail foremost, and that action as well as others may be 

 imitated occasionally, but it is not a common action, and only 

 adopted when the tish has but a short distance to go, or in a rapid. 

 When a tish. whether large or small, wants to go down stivam it 

 almost invariably turns round, and swims down head foremost, 

 for the obvious reason, that it can then see before it, and avoid 



THE ROD IV IN ['I V. F 2 



