228 Rod and,Taekle. < iiapt. xviii. 



mounted with treble hooks, should invariably be tied with this care 

 for a tropical clime. But, except where one treble is placed below 

 another in a flight, it is best to have eyed trebles. 



" K.," in his interesting letter (" Field," 9 October, 1869, and 

 copied below) on Mahseer fishing on the Poonch, 

 says the winch should be capable of holding 

 200 yards of running line. And " Barkis," writing to the " Field," 

 6 July, 1878, is not content with less than 250 yards ; but I find 

 Colonel Parsons agrees with me that 120 yards is ample, and he 

 speaks of 50 lb. fish. And K.'s biggest fish, see Chapter XXIV, in 

 the Poonch did not run out more than 100 yards. There may be 

 singular occasions when a big fish wants more than 120 yards, and 

 you are not in a boat, so that you can follow, or are hemmed in by 

 forest, so that you cannot move after him along the shore, and the 

 home he is making for is far from where you hooked him ; but 

 such are very singular occasions I am satisfied. Much of your 

 enjoyment in fishing depends on having in your hands a rod yo\i 

 can work with comfortable ease. The winch is not the least part 

 of the weight, and if you enlarge your reel, and double the length 

 and weight of your running line, fishing becomes a labour instead of 

 a pleasure. I do not see the wisdom of making all your sport a 

 labour for the possible chance of falling in with a fish that, in very 

 exceptional circumstances, might want a most exceptionable amount 

 of line. I would rather fall out with such an exceptionable cha- 

 racter. I would rather break my line with one such fish in 1,000, 

 or, perhaps, it would be nearer the mark to say there is only one 

 such fish in several thousands. I would rather deliberately break 

 with such a fish than take the cream off all my sport with the 

 other 999, 1 have never had to do it yet. Of course I have been 

 broken again and again, who has not, but it has always been in the 

 first violent rush, never for want of running line, and I use, and 

 commend to your use, 120 yards. 



Will you consider for a moment ; a fish does not ordinarily set 

 out fin- the next county the moment he is hooked, his object on 

 such occasions is not foreign travel but his own village. He is 

 frightened at the novel feeling of restraint, exerts all his strength 

 to rush from it, and his object is to seek shelter in his home, which, 

 with a Mahseer, is ordinarily the deepest part of the very pool in 

 or near which von have hooked him. He has left that shelter for 



