196 Bottom Fishing for Labeo. CHAP. xin. 



In " Tank Angling " I said I had a personal acquaintance with only 

 four of the Labeos, but since then I have extended my visiting circle, 

 and have become quite intimate with the grand Rohu, the sprightly 

 Mirgha, and the massive Catla. 



The heroes of this chapter are the Rohu (Labeo rohita), which 

 attains three feet or more in length, and has been caught on a rod up 

 to 54 Ibs. in weight; the Kalbans (L. calbasu}, and L. Kontius, which 

 grow to 3 feet in length, and have been recorded as weighing 20 Ibs. ; 

 and other Labeos proper, as Labeo fimbriatus, and L. nigrescens, and 

 L. bata, which are half the size of L. calbasu and L. gorims, which 

 attains nearly 5 feet in length, probably nearer 70 Ibs. than 50 Ibs. in 

 weight ; the Mirgha (Cirrhina mrigald), growing to 3 feet in length, 

 and taken with a rod up to 34 Ibs. in weight ; the White Carp 

 (C. cirrhosa) of i~ foot in length; and the Catla (Catla Buchanani), 

 attaining at least 6 feet in length, and recorded as having been taken 

 up to 100 Ibs. on a rod. 



But as I have already filled more than half a separate book with 

 this subject it would not be right that I should swell these pages with 

 repetition. I will rather presume you to be the happy possessor of 

 that little volume " Tank Angling in India," and I will here set down 

 only the additional matter that I have acquired since that little book 

 was published in 1887. 



Fishing in Waves. It was always an admitted difficulty that 

 if there were waves no float could show the minute jigs of these 

 peculiar fish when biting shyly. A way of meeting this difficulty has 

 since been found. In the Hassan Sagar tank at Hyderabad in the 

 Deccan, the fishing is from the embankment, with 30 feet of water at 

 your feet, and in December the prevailing wind sweeps across the 

 whole breadth of the magnificent reservoir straight towards you, 

 raising, not a ripple only, but a decided wave on the surface, breaking 

 with a plash at your feet. No float could be of any use at that season 

 of shy biting. In the bold biting season, when a Rohu would take 

 under even a pike float, it would of course be easy. But in December 

 if the float was, as it should be, so sensitive that the weight of the bait 

 would pull it under, then, at every wave, being out of its depth, it was 

 submerged ; and with a float one moment under water and the next on 

 its side, it was impossible to see a bite, much less the critical jigging. 

 If, on the contrary, the float was buoyant enough not to be submerged, 



