MONSTER FISH. 29 



Owing to this toughness of mouth, a mahseer when fixed is 

 seldom lost unless it breaks the tackle. This a big fish often 

 will do in its first plunge, when it sometimes has a way of 

 lashing its tail over the line. That crisis being safely over, 

 if your tackle is trustworthy, landing your fish is usually 

 only a matter of time and patience. Its strong teeth are set 

 far back in its gullet, and the stoutest tackle has a poor 

 chance if it gorges your lure beyond them. It cannot be 

 easily clipped, as its large round scales are so hard that the 

 sharpest gaff will glance off them. When running a mahseer 

 after it has been fairly hooked, I have never known it leap 

 from the water, and I think it rarely does so, but its long and 

 rapid rushes quite equal if they do not surpass those of any 



The Mahseer. 



salmon of a similar size. As regards its weight, I am well 

 within the mark when I state that the mahseer reaches 

 nearly, if not quite, 100 Ib. The largest mahseer I ever 

 heard of as having been taken with a trolling bait, was 93 

 Ib. ; and with fly, one that turned the scale at 62 Ib. 1 But 

 such monsters as these are very seldom landed with the rod. 



My reason for drawing comparisons between the salmon 

 and the mahseer is chiefly because the latter is sometimes 

 termed the " salmon of Indian rivers." It might just as well 



1 The 93-pounder was killed by Mr H. Vansittart, C.S., in one of the rivers 

 of the Dehra Doon ; the 62-pounder in the Pooneh river in the Punjab, by 

 the late General Sir Herbert Macpherson, who was as keen a sportsman as he 

 was a good and gallant soldier. 



