64 Spinning for Mahseer. CHAP. v. 



springy top ? I have, after a vigorous fight in rough water, shelved 

 a Mahseer of some 5 Ibs., as memory serves me, which had one hook 

 embedded half way up the barb in the hardest part of the gill cover, in 

 short, it was only pressing at right angles against the bone, and dropped 

 out as I took off the tension. Who did that ? Not I, but my springy 

 top. Once more. In very rough water I hooked a Mahseer, which, 

 after a mile of exposure on a coolie's shoulder in the sun, scaled, I see 

 in my notes, 30! Ibs. in camp. Away down stream he rushed like a 

 madman, screaming out the line, though the basket-boat was started 

 after him as promptly as possible ; presently he stopped, and the basket- 

 boat, with its way on, overshot him. Of course I was telling the 

 boatman what to do, and he was paddling and I reeling up, all we 

 knew. In the heat of the action as we were making downwards towards 

 still water, where there was plenty of elbow room and a bit of shelving 

 bank, everywhere else huge precipitous rocks overhung us, there was a 

 cessation of vibration, the telegraphic communication between me and 

 my fish was interrupted. Promptly we paddled above him, got him 

 out of his arm-chair on some rock at the bottom, and began conducting 

 him, foot by foot as he gave way, down another division of the river 

 away from his friendly arm-chair, which he hung on to like a dentist's. 

 For the first time I got just a momentary glance of the commencement 

 of a 9-ft. spinning trace. It was refreshing to see signs of getting better 

 acquainted. But down it went again into the dark depths. Finally I 

 landed, got the boat and the natives out of the way, and after fifty-two 

 minutes of good hard fighting shelved my friend. As I stooped down 

 to unhook the fish, the hook tumbled out. It had only been round one 

 ray of the tail fin all the time, and the hook had been so small a one 

 that it little more than encircled the ray at its base. Now, who killed 

 that fish? Not I, certainly, but my springy rod. I defy the best 

 fisherman going to have killed that fish with a barge pole. This, then, 

 is one of the advantages of a springy elastic rod. I know of an angler 

 going so far as to say that with such rods he did not want any barb to 

 the hook, and preferred them without for trout, as they pierced more 

 readily. There, however, I cannot follow him. It is with special 

 reference to the first rush that the speciality of a Mahseer rod should 

 be pliability, elasticity, on no account rigidity. 



An Irish friend has been down on me with the impatient remark : 

 " Why don't you call it a Castle Connel rod ? " Why, because that would 



