102 Gram- Fishing for Mahseer. Chapt. vin. 



as it ever will, and then parch it in a frying pan, without the 

 everlasting ghee or any such thing, till well browned and crisp, 

 just as you would like to eat it. It will not actually float till 

 fried to a cinder, but it is more or less buoyant, as it is more or 

 less fried. 



This, then, is your ground-bait, and the bait with which you 

 fish should be just the same, with the one addition, that it 

 must have a hole through it, large enough to admit the gut and 

 the shank of the hook, but not to allow the barb to pass. Boring 

 this hole is rather troublesome, for the grain, after frying, is very 

 hard. It can be done with a very fine brad-awl, but the best way 

 is with a red hot needle, set at the end of a handle, that you can 

 expose to the fire. A dozen, or a dozen and a half, bored berries 

 are quite enough for a day's fishing. 



The hook used should be a No. 1£ Limerick (my scale) on 

 a single gut. Whatever I may have said to the contrary in 

 other places, no knot should be tied in this gut, or it may not 

 pass through the hole in the gram. Singe the end of the gut 

 before binding it to the hook, and whip your loop, and for both 

 of them use fine silk, so as to avoid thickness. Put the loop of 

 the gut through the hole in the gram, and so string on gram 

 enough to cover the whole shank of the hook, the first strung 

 piece of gram resting against the barb, and being kept by it from 

 slipping off. 



Before setting to work, let your man get the fish together, 

 by a cast or two more of ground-bait. The fish ought to be 

 visibly bobbing up their heads, and crowding together for the 

 gram. Then let the man throw in a handful, and with it cast in 

 your line into the middle of the bobbing, gobbling, crowd. You 

 will get one every throw. To use a Shaksperian simile "it is as 

 easy as lying:" you have not got to strike, or to do any thing. 

 You just feel your bait is taken, and you pull him in as soon as 

 he'll let you. You may go on taking one after another out of 

 the same run. They do not seem to mind it. at any rate not till 

 you have made a sensible impression on their numbers. I 

 suppose they do not begin to think of the hotel bill till after thej 

 have had their dinner. 



Fish the rapid heavy runs, not the pools, and when you have 

 < itablished a funk in one place, then try another of the previously 



