CHAP. ii. Playing a Mahseer. 15 



prospect, and dashes off again just as you would have him. Thus you 

 keep him at it, and very soon tire him out. But in practice your pull 

 at right angles to the stream generally compels the fish to keep working 

 up stream, and that betters your position, enabling you to apply a 

 strain that is a compound of a perpendicular, a down-stream and a 

 shoreward pull. In deep water, however, you may be equally satisfied 

 you are wasting no power by pulling the fish upwards, for the specific 

 gravity of a fish being very little greater than that of water, he gains 

 next to nothing by his weight while in the water, and he must keep on 

 exerting himself to swim downwards, with his head down and tail up, 

 to resist your upward strain, and as in that direction he can never swim 

 beyond the bottom, you are ensured against any violent rush. A friend 

 wrote to me of a fish boring at first, and then making a free fight with 

 a good deal of spluttering on the surface. I do not look upon this 

 spluttering on the surface as fighting, but as an indication that the fight 

 was over, the fish was beaten, and had no longer the power to bore 

 down to the bottom. As soon as ever a fish begins to splutter, the 

 pulling upwards should cease, the point of the rod should be lowered 

 and pulled sideways, not upwards, so as to bring the fish to shore with- 

 out having its head out of water. Spluttering is dangerous and to be 

 discouraged, for direct communication through the air means the 

 absence of the yielding cushion which the water supplies in easing off 

 each jerk on the line ; it means, also, that the fish gains the advantage 

 of his specific gravity being greater in the air than in the water. It is 

 an ugly time when a jack shakes his jaws in the air, and never is a trout 

 so likely to get off as when springing into the air. With fish that have 

 not such vices naturally, it is a great mistake to help them to being 

 troublesome. No Mahseer, indeed none of the Indian carp, are up to 

 those little tricks, so never bring them to the actual surface, but play 

 them short of that till you land them. 



Briefly, then, my idea is to be heavy on your fish, and be unremit- 

 ting, be prompt, scan your battle-field, and choose your ground, and 

 shape the course of events as much as you can yourself; in a stream 

 pull generally at right angles to it, in deep water pull upwards, 

 get your fish on terra fa-ma as soon as possible, it is the safest place 

 for him. 



An extra reason for having the line as taut and straight from the 

 fish to the top of your rod as possible is that you may lessen the chances 



