CHAPTER XIX 



FISHING 



THIS work would be very incomplete without some refer- 

 ence to the sport awaiting the would-be angler, though I 

 am bound to say a country better provided with fish, and 

 less fished \>y sportsmen, than Ceylon, would be hard to find. 



Most of the rivers, and all the tanks, swamps, and 

 lagoons simply teem with fish ; yet, whilst great attention 

 has been turned towards stocking the Nuwara Eliya dis- 

 trict streams with trout, the low- country or native fish 

 possibilities have been neglected. 



As regards the low country, I think very few people 

 indeed have gone in for systematic fishing in rivers or 

 tanks. In some of the rivers I believe fly will be taken, 

 and I know that spoon bait, artificial spinning bait, and live 

 bait proper are all taken readily enough. 



The rivers, however, are not easy to fish on account of 

 the luxurious vegetation along the banks, so that trolling 

 or casting of any sort would not be easy unless done from 

 a rock or sandbank well out in the stream. Bottom-fishing 

 can, of course, be done under favourable circumstances. A 

 drawback to fly-fishing is that all waters swarm with tiny 

 fish of various kinds constantly on the look-out for any- 

 thing which may come floating along or drop into the 

 water, so that the moment a fly is cast it is literally 

 pounced on by these voracious little pests and swallowed 

 at once the bigger fish never having a look in. These 

 abominable little beasts actually come and bite and nibble 



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