I 'HUT. Jt 



/ / Taking the Fly. 



l::i 



which grow more and more trying with time. For a trip such as 

 I am proposing, a comfortable seat is as much a part of your 

 tisliinL; gear as your rod and line, and it should be got ready 

 beforehand and taken with you. You may trj ever so much to 

 keep yourself up to the mark, but it is impossible you can keep on 

 fishing nearly as well while increasingly uncomfortable, as if you 

 were thoroughly at ease and enjoying it. 



lor eating oneself, I do not think the Camatic Carp are worth 

 keeping, though they are much better than the common English 

 carp (Oyprinua earpio), which some people manage to clamber 

 outside somehow. To those about to do so, my advice is, don't. 



Our Camatic friend is not so active a fish as the Mahseer. 

 It does not dash off like the Mahseer, it takes out very little line, 

 but goes down in deep water, and bores about like a log without 

 very much change of place. It is, therefore, not a difficult fish to 

 kill. It never jumps into the air like a trout, nor shakes its mouth 

 in the air like a pike. It has a leathery, toothless mouth, and 

 gives as good a hook hold as the Mahseer. Its teeth are like the 

 Mahseer's, and all carps, pharyngeal or in the throat. Still, do 

 not think otherwise than kindly of him, for is he not a fly taker ? 

 And is it not a great thing to get a fish that takes the fly 

 better than anything else? 



But it does not take the fly after the manner of the Trout, 

 the Salmon, and the Mahseer, rising to it from its place in the 

 stream, taking it qnickly in at a gulp, and then returning to its 

 position. On the contrary, it takes the fly more as the dace does. 



It swims leisurely up to it, and just sucks it in. It then does 

 not sink to the bottom so as to oppose its weight to and tauten the 

 line at once. It stops where it is, or continues to swim leisurely 

 about, or it lets itself be carried leisurely down stream to 

 where it was before. And if while doing this it discovers that 

 your fly is a tasteless, uncomfortable-feel in.; leather, instead of the 

 juicy morsel it had expected, it simply spits it out. It is a pretty 

 little accomplishment commonly practised in polite circles among 

 all fish, and some of them are great adepts at it. Chdrao rostratus 

 is a gentleman I would almost back against a Yankee at 

 '■\pectoration. He makes his living by it. He used to be 

 known by the name of Chatodon rostratus. I suppose he 

 changed his name because he didn't like the stories told about 



THK HOD IN INPIl. 



K 2 





