CHAP. xx. My Brake-winch. 291 



One of these tackle makers was himself a practical salmon fisher, and 

 assured me that he found by actual experiment, that he could kill a 

 salmon much quicker with his device than without it, and I do not 

 doubt him for a moment. Indeed, I can see that it must be so, for 

 he has gone half way to getting hold of the same idea as myself, but 

 stopped short at what has been my difficulty, that of applying a practical 

 brake. As in my own winch he brings the revolving plate to the 

 outside edge of the winch on one side, but there he gives it a smooth 

 surface so that he can apply his finger to it to check its speed as it 

 revolves. He says it succeeds with a salmon. Maybe it does. But I 

 would like to see him trying the same game on a Mahseer. He'd very 

 soon cry " off," with his finger burnt by the much more rapidly revolving 

 plate, or if he relieved his finger by taking it off now and again, as a man 

 does when trying to stick to a hot plate at a shooting lunch, and as I 

 did when trying to stick to my trial of the white kid glove, the very 

 taking off and on must mean want of continuity of pressure with 

 occasional jerks, after one of which he would probably find that the 

 Mahseer had cried " off," for any abrupt stoppage to a fish going at 

 that tremendous pace must necessarily imply more or less of a jerk, and 

 probably prove fatal. But with my brake it is not so. There is a 

 comfortable hollow button handy to the finger or thumb-tip through 

 which you can apply to the revolving plate just the modicum of 

 pressure you desire, and can apply it continuously without the slightest 

 inconvenience, and there is a spring which makes the brake spring free 

 the instant you release it, or relax the pressure, so that you can regulate 

 the pressure to a nicety from an ounce pull upwards to a dead lock, 

 and that with promptitude, according to the varying tactics of the fish 

 throughout the conflict, and by the pressure of a single finger. 



The other device I saw was a screw on the outside non-revolving 

 plate, by giving a turn to which you could bring pressure to bear on the 

 side of the inner revolving plate, and so set the friction to any degree 

 you liked. But so set it became a permanent quantity till you unscrewed 

 it again, a thing you could not attempt to do while in the act of playing 

 a fish. Any such set friction would be utterly fatal to Mahseer fishing. 

 It is the very thing we have been trying all along to get rid of, 

 uncontrollable friction, for though, in the case of this device, it may be 

 capable of being regulated before commencing to fish, it is under no 

 sort of control at the second of a heavy fish striking you, and would 



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