CHAP. ii. Playing a Mahseer. 17 



Mahseer that has not rushed down stream first. But, to return to our 

 subject, wherever your fish goes on his first mad career, when the 

 throbbing comes you may commence estimating how big he is. 



This may perhaps be best illustrated by a quotation from a letter 

 of my own written close on experiences : 



" R. got an 8-lb. Mahseer. G. and P. came up just in the nick of time 

 to see it struck. R. had the salmon rod held in both hands with the butt 

 almost straight to the fish, and bending down to the hand. None but 

 a good rod and good tackle could have stood it and yet the line was 

 screaming out down stream for about fifty yards, just as if there was a 

 5o-lb. fish on, till the fish took up a position in the deep water, and R. 

 wound up and got close to him to find to his disappointment that the 

 fight was practically over in that one grand struggle. A little dull resistance, 

 a few turns, and the fish was shelved. It is surprising what a game fish 

 a Mahseer is ! The first blow and rush of a 5-lb. or lo-lb. fish is so violent 

 and furious that no sign is given by which you may know it from a fish 

 ten times its size ; hence it is that many men think it must have been a 

 very monster that broke them, whereas it may equally have been a 5-lb. or 

 6-lb. fish. It is only in the duration of the run, the continuance of the 

 strength, that the size of the Mahseer can be approximately guessed at." 



I may mention here, as a case in point, with reference to the manner 

 of playing a fish, that a friend killed a forty-six pound Mahseer after a 

 four hours' fight, and that the very next day, in the very same run, I 

 killed a Mahseer of the same weight to an ounce, and in splendid con- 

 dition, in forty-five minutes by my watch. And my rod and line were 

 not stronger than my friend's \ my line was exactly similar, and my rod 

 was, if anything, lighter. It was not my fish, then, or my water, or my 

 tackle that were different, only my tactics. Nor had I any advantage 

 in the way my fish was hooked. It was simply the tactics the tactics 

 to which I am seeking your adhesion. 



Should you chance to hook your fish in the under lip an unusual 

 occurrence the upward pull of the line may tend to make it difficult 

 for the fish to open its mouth wide so as to inhale freely the oxygen in 

 the water, with the result that the fish would be the sooner exhausted. 

 But there was no such accident in the above case in point. 



Please note that I kept the regulation time, forty-six pounds in forty- 

 five minutes, a pound a minute. I insist on punctuality. 



A brake-winch will very much assist your insistance, and enable you 



THE ROD IN INDIA. C 



