CHAP. xiv. The Goonch. 211 



The Punjab name is Goonch. 



Mr. Cyril Kirkpatrick has kindly given me the following bag, taken 

 from his note-book, which is reliably exact, the facts having been 

 recorded at the time. The fish were caught in his company by 

 Mr. Aldwell. 



i6th March, 1881, 134, 103, 94, 87, 79, 18 Ibs. = 515 Ibs. 



20th 74, 63, sii, 4of, 2ilbs. = 250^ Ibs. 



27th 721,63 Ibs. = 135! Ibs. 



loth April, 164 Ibs. = 164 Ibs. 



i.e., in four days on i rod fourteen fish weighing 1065 Ibs. 



They wanted to clear them out, because they were troublesome 

 when Mahseer fishing, sulking and smashing tackle. Therefore they 

 used the strongest of tackle, a male bamboo or ringol, on which they 

 played them till they sulked, and then they simply hauled them out, 

 hand over hand, on a cord as thick as a pencil. 



Then followed in the note-book the entries : 



1 5th April, 1 2 Ibs. 

 24th 12, 15 Ibs. 



And then the remark " no more caught that season," from which it 

 would seem that they had succeeded fairly well in clearing out " the 

 sulking brutes." 



Here a communication to the Asian of 27th February, 1883, by 

 Yuba Bill will interest my readers : 



" I am much obliged to ' Rod ' for his kindly notice ot my inquiries 

 regarding Goonch in the penultimate issue of the Asian. The fish to 

 which I alluded is, as he suspects, the Bagarius Yarrellii shown in plate 18, 

 (now xi) facing page 170 (now 209) of The Rod in India,' and the place is 

 Okhla, seven miles from Delhi. 



" I generally find the Goonch occupying the very head of a rapid ; they 

 lie motionless with apparently no effort in the white water among the 

 boulders at the foot of a smooth incline down which the water rushes with 

 immense force through the open sluices of the weir. Some idea .may be 

 formed of the strength of the stream from the fact that the river Jumna, 

 which is at this point about three quarters of a mile wide, is artificially 

 narrowed by a bund to a width of about thirty yards, this being the length 

 of the weir through which nearly the whole volume of water has to pass 



P 2 



