62 Spinning for Mahseer. CHAP. v. 



Of all bait, however, the one that I consider the most killing, when 

 available, and if you will be bothered with it, is a dead fish on light 

 spinning tackle. Any small fish from 3 to 6 inches in length will do, 

 but if I am picking out of many in a bait-can I select, and use first, 

 those that are exactly 4 inches long, tail included. I prefer this length 

 both because it is a nice edible size, and generally appreciated, I fancy, 

 by the majority of Mahseer, and also because it is a convenient weight 

 to throw out from the ordinary fly top of a light salmon rod. If you 

 have a much heavier bait on, it will rather strain a fly top to be con- 

 stantly throwing it, and if you put on a special trolling top for the 

 purpose, not only will you certainly be broken, but you cannot change 

 from spinning to fly fishing at will, or at least you cannot change without 

 more trouble, and the loss of more time, than it is worth ; whereas you 

 ought, with the aid of an attendant, to be able to do it under the minute, 

 and to take just a dozen casts over that pretty bit at the far end of the 

 pool which you could not quite reach with your minnow, and which it 

 would be a positive sin to leave untried, before passing on to other 

 water, and replacing your fly collar by your spinning trace, the former 

 being wound round your hat, or better still, thrown down for your 

 attendant to crown his turban with at better leisure than you can 

 possibly be expected to have while so deeply engaged. 



These were the considerations that first led to my spinning with a 

 fly top in old experimentalizing days, when also I wanted to make a fair 

 trial which was the more killing bait, a fly or a fish. I came thereby 

 to learn, however, that a pliable top carries with it very much more 

 important advantages. The Mahseer takes its fly perhaps much as a 

 salmon does, rising at it and descending quietly to its old place at the 

 bottom till it feels the hook, but even then its first rush after feeling the 

 hook is very much more violent than a salmon's. It is this grand first 

 rush that is the glory of Mahseer fishing. But in spinning there is added 

 to it yet another danger, the Mahseer does not ordinarily take its fish 

 quietly as if it knew it would be unresisting like a puny fly, but it seizes 

 it, not always, certainly, but not uncommonly, with an angry blow that 

 gives a sudden jerk to the line ; it comes at the fish bait with a swoop 

 like a hawk, and seizing it passes swirling by at speed. To this angry 

 jerk is -very quickly added the grand rush that follows on feeling the 

 restraint of the hook and line. Then it is that you find out, as mentioned 

 in Chapter II., that no hand is light enough. The Mahseer is too quick 



