CHAP. xi. The Theory of Striking. 165 



fly at that time on the water, that all his hereditary and acquired 

 suspicions about perfidious anglers are disarmed. His motto is Timeo 

 Danaos et dona ferentes . 



There, now, I am always prating about fishing with your brains, and 

 not by rule of thumb, and may be you will be sick and tired of me, and 

 shy the confounded book on one side ; but to my mind it is so much 

 more interesting to have an intelligent reason for what you are doing, 

 that I hope you will be graciously pleased to pardon the seeming 

 digression. Suppose, now, that you have been missing rise after rise of 

 our friend of this chapter, the Carnatic Carp, and you cannot make it 

 out, and you vary your tactics and strike a little slower. Instead of 

 there being any improvement in the results your discomfiture is only 

 increased. And then you try back again, and you fish half-heartedly 

 on no fixed principle, but according to your vacillating haphazard 

 mood. Whereas, if you have accepted my reasoning as sound, and 

 have yourself seen that these fish take the fly just as I say they do, then 

 you fish like a man with a purpose. If you miss a rise you do not 

 deviate from your purpose, you only say to yourself my fixed purpose 

 must be still more carefully executed, my line must have been cast just 

 a little carelessly, not quite straight, or it cannot have been kept quite 

 straight as it should have been, or that fellow was one too many for me 

 that time, though my ball was a regular bailer. Try some more of 

 those. The truth is I had not had a rise for some twenty throws or 

 more, and I had got just a little slovenly over it. Never mind, I'll 

 take a pull on myself and see if I can't be even with them next time. 

 Next time you have him. 



There are good fishermen who will be angry with me for all this 

 prating, I daresay, because there are good fishermen who lay down 

 points dogmatically, and their dictum is accepted because they are 

 successful. But I maintain that even the successful could be more 

 successful still if they would study the rationale of the thing, and fish 

 at every step on natural history knowledge. The best fishermen do 

 this intuitively, and such would not accept anything on the ipse 

 dixit of the writer merely because it is set down in a book. They 

 will want to know the reason why, and to weigh the reasoning for 

 themselves. 



But some will say that, when striking very quick, they are in danger 

 of striking too hard and breaking either rod or line when they come 



