FISHING IN THE EAST 

 (Cirrhina mrigala), -whicb has been taken with a bait up to thirty -four pounds, 

 and bites in a sensible way. 



Occasionally, but very rarely, the freshwater shark {Wallago attu) will 

 take your paste bait, but he prefers a live bait picketed at the bottom, 

 as for mahseer, in coloured water. He runs from two or three to six feet 

 long. We used to set a heavy rod or two so baited near us while fishing for 

 labeo, and jump up for it when the reel gave tongue. He is not very 

 dashing in his movements, but goes off much like a pike. 



The little silvery chilwa {Chela argentea) attains only six inches in length, 

 but takes a fly, and is said to be good eating. A brother of the angle writes 

 me that in my book the chilwa is treated with scant ceremony, though 

 it gives good sport with a fly, failing heavier fish. He had a little rivalry 

 for one hour and a half; his friend got 140 and he 162, which is at the rate 

 of nine fish every five minutes. While fishing for labeo ourselves I did not 

 like our willing attendants being nothing but lookers on, and gave them 

 each a No. 14 hook, with one length of gut, a string, and a miniature 

 "Detective" float, with a twig of bamboo for rod. It was one bob of the 

 float and there was a flying fish in the air going shorewards. They got ten 

 times as much as they could eat, and were happy men. And cur noriy as a 

 generous sportsman put in a double sense over the gravestone reared to 

 the memory of his good greyhound. 



In this fishing you will sometimes get small turtle. The white bellied 

 ones make good turtle soup, the black bellied are as evil smelling 

 as a sewer. Some turtle in rivers are so large as to strain a stout 

 salmon rod to its utmost. Native fishermen will form semicircle and 

 dive for them, spearing them under water, and sometimes having a toe 

 bitten off. 



BARILS 



Barilius bola is found in rivers of Northern India, and is called the Indian 

 trout from its rising to a fly boldly, being spotted, and somewhat trout- 

 like in form, and fighting gamely, though it is not one of the Salmonidce. It 

 averages three-quarters of a pound, and attains two pounds, and swims 

 in shoals, and I have had three at a cast. They have a large mouth, and 

 take small fish freely, making them their chief food, and pursue your 

 fly as if it were a fish or black tadpole, and prefer the fly pulled rather 

 fast up-stream to floating slowly down-stream, as an English trout would 

 like to see it. The fly may be the size of a large lake fly for trout, hook 

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