g6 How, When, and Where to Fish for Mahseer. CHAP. vi. 



confidence of catching your bait. The chances, I say, as well as nature, 

 are against spinning quickly. For my part I like to dawdle a bait 

 about, up and down, under this bank, close by that big stone, and let it 

 peep into every little nook and cranny likely to hold a big fish. 



But, perhaps, you may see a big fish eyeing your bait, what is to 

 be done then ? You feel disposed to cease pulling it away from him, 

 and to let him have a better look at it. The first impulse is to stop 

 altogether, and wait for him. Such a course would be fatal. Spin 

 quietly on as if you had not seen him. If he has already suspected 

 your bait, you will not mend matters by letting it fall dead before him. 

 But if, on the contrary, he is simply eyeing it, to see if it gives him a 

 fair opportunity for surprising it at a spring, then let that opportunity 

 appear, by continuing its listless dawdling motion in the same direction, 

 and the chances are he will make up his mind with a promptitude that 

 will astonish you ; and so sudden will be his dash that, before you have 

 well seen him move, you will feel he has taken your bait. But if he 

 does not, try him again with another throw or two, bringing your bait 

 by him in different ways, but not too obtrusively. I remember one of 

 the first times I tested these tactics. Two decent fish of the perch 

 family (Lutianus roseus) were deliberately following my bait. They 

 were side by side, and about a yard behind my bait, but they kept on 

 following it deliberately, and eyeing it intently wdthout offering to come 

 a bit nearer. " Oh, my heart went pit a pat, pit a pat ; " but I screwed 

 it down resolutely, and I bethought me what should I do now if I was 

 a nice little fish, with two great ugly brutes like that behind me. Why, 

 if I knew it, I should bolt like mad instanter, and if I did not know it, 

 I should just go quietly paddling on exactly as I am doing now, and then 

 I should probably get masticated for my listlessness. So the end of my 

 cogitations was that my bait was made to act out this little pantomime, 

 to pursue the even tenor of its way seemingly unconscious of the 

 devouring element behind. But oh, the agony of suspense ! This spin 

 can't last for ever. Will they never take ? In another yard or two the 

 bait will have come so home to me, that I shall have to pull it out. I 

 was rewarded : one of the two, probably the unsuspecting and inquisitive 

 female, had made up her mind that it was " O. K.," and had dashed so 

 suddenly on the bait, that all I was aware of, was her disappearance 

 from the side of her companion, and a tugging at my rod. The conse- 

 quence was that she and I became very much attached to one another, 



