MEMORIES OF MAHSEER 



triangle, that the lost mahseer had been hooked. That mighty 

 mahseer are occasionally taken is illustrated by one that a 

 friend of mine brought back, not long after the adventure 

 described above, from Tangrot, on the Jhelum, in those days 

 the Mecca of enthusiastic fishermen, a fish that measured 

 exactly the same number of inches as his wife — not, it must 

 be confessed, a tall woman, but at any rate not less than five 

 feet. Touching further records of lost giants, I could tell 

 how I once saw a big fish break in a trice, by sheer weight 

 and strength, a four-ply of copper wire between spoon and 

 trace. The line had got caught round the reel-handle in trol- 

 ling from a boat, and there was no possibility of freeing it 

 before the end came. Not all the monsters have been lost, 

 however, for Mr. Murray Aynsley killed a brace of 104 lb. 

 and loi lb., both in the Cauvery. 



Size and weight are not everything to the true fisherman, 

 who looks for other virtues in his favourites, including a 

 readiness to take some orthodox lure, a spirit of battle when 

 hooked, and a presentable appearance when finally brought 

 to the gaff ; and I think that the mahseer can hold its own 

 with some of the best sporting fishes of other lands. Those 

 who have no acquaintance with it may be inclined to under- 

 rate its good qualities when they learn that it is a carp, and, 

 like its more homely cousin, a ground-feeder ; for the ordinary 

 pond carp undeniably suggests a sluggish quarry entailing 

 hours of waiting beside a float and a hook baited with worm 

 or paste, without in every case much of a struggle at the end. 

 In the case of the carp, the environment of quiet waters may 



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