CHAP. xx. The Check-winch. 287 



me that it was a device much more inconvenient and laborious of 

 application, as well as less effective in results, than my brake-winch 

 mentioned below. This new brake may therefore be found useful to 

 Tarpon fishers as well as to Mahseer fishermen, and may be an 

 advantage even to salmon tamers. 



I have said use a check-winch in order, more than for any other 

 reason, that the line may not overshoot, and so getting wound the 

 wrong way for a turn or two, become liable to a sudden hitch when 

 called on to run out again. Such overshooting is the more likely the 

 more rapid the run of a fish, and no fish takes out line and makes the 

 wheel revolve faster than does a Mahseer. 



Still the strength of the check should not on that account be in- 

 creased beyond what is found right for a salmon. This I found from 

 once having a check-winch in which the spring had to be replaced by 

 a local Indian workman, a first-class workman, but not one specially 

 educated in check-winches. The new spring which he put in for me 

 proved too strong, and I found on trial that the result was a break of 

 tackle at the first blow of a Mahseer, so that I dared not use that winch 

 again till the spring was eased. 



The rapidity of rush in a Mahseer is an argument that cuts two ways, 

 and to steer between the Scylla and Charybdis of overshooting and too 

 much winch friction, the pull on a check-winch should be adjusted with 

 as much nicety as the pull on a trigger, adjusted exactly as for salmon, 

 and it should be uniform. I have seen a winch in which the pull, with 

 the winch rightly full of line, was ordinarily 4 ounces, but sometimes 

 ran up to 9 and 10 ounces to just move the line. Such irregularity is 

 fatal to Mahseer fishing. It is a reason for not buying cheap winches, 

 but going to the best makers for this important part of your fishing 

 tackle. 



In respect of the pull, therefore, the check of the winch for Mahseer 

 should not, any more than the rod, be sui generis, but the. same as for 

 salmon, only it is doubly necessary that it should be of the best quality, 

 and any extra pressure that may at times be needed, should on no 

 account be by a stiff winch or, what amounts to the same, by any one 

 of those reels which provide for your increasing the winch friction by 

 a side screw, because the action of those side .screws cannot be sufficiently 

 rapid to meet emergencies, and must result in giving you, for the time 

 being, uncontrollable friction, which can only end in a break of tackle, 



