CHAP. xii. The Ckilwa. . 173 



length, however, should be worth catching. They are most game fly 

 takers, springing into the air after the fly. They want striking very 

 quickly, and especially they want the smallest possible fly. Any black 

 or dun fly will do for them ; but if it is not small enough you may have 

 rises, but you will keep on missing them most provokingly. If they 

 are in the rising humour they will cover * the surface of the water with 

 rises, and you may have rises at every throw. But you won't catch 

 them unless your fly is very small, and your fly top stiff rather than 

 pliant, so that you may strike quickly. You will be surprised what a 

 difference a stiff top joint will make to you. 



Ordinary trout flies on No. 9 to 12 Sneck bend hooks are scarcely 

 small enough, and it would be better to have black flies and light duns 

 tied on No. 14, the smallest size of Sneck-bends and fine drawn gut. 

 These were the smallest hooks shown in the scale given in my last 

 edition. They may now be quoted as ooo in the scale in this edition. 

 Fish with three such flies on a light collar. 



They do not seem to rise till i or i| hours before sunset, and to 

 rise best just before and just after sunset. They rise in the morning 

 also, but not so well as in the evening. I do not think they attain the 

 same size in ponds as they do in rivers, though they become very 

 numerous. In rivers they are to be found all over the deepest, largest 

 pools, pools that hold Mahseer and Freshwater Shark. They seem to 

 be most numerous along the shore edge and near bushes, but the bigger 

 ones seemed to be mostly in the deep mid water, but always near the 

 surface. 



They may also be taken easily with a float, if they are thought 

 worth fishing for in that way. The bait, a single grain of boiled rice, 

 or a small pellet of rice on a minute hook, say No. ooo Sneck bend, 

 should hang within about a foot of the surface, and the float must be 

 very sensitive, and the rod short and light and stiff so that you can 

 strike quickly. Natives use with advantage the merest little bit of pith 

 or quill less than an inch long, and a straight bit of small bamboo tip. 

 I have seen them, thus armed, catching them by the dozen, to eat. 

 Perhaps they were having an unusually good time of it; but they 

 spoke as if it could be done whenever they liked. Still they seemed 

 abnormally jolly over it. 



I have caught three sorts myself with a fly Chela argentea, C. boopis, 

 and C. clupeoides, and I have caught them on the west coast of 



