MEMORIES OF MAHSEER 



good fight to follow. Mercifully, the tackle held, and only 

 the coming of night put a stop to the orgy. At length it was 

 no longer possible to see the spoon strike the water, and the 

 sensation of playing the last fish of the day without any notion 

 of the direction in which it was next going to dash provided 

 a fitting climax to a crowded hour. Thirteen fish I had caught 

 in the time, scaling in all just 51 lb. Here, then, was a great 

 happening of the unexpected, the more interesting to me 

 because it had falsified the dictum of our greatest authority 

 on Indian fishing, who holds that any attempt to catch mahseer 

 after sunset is the one thing hopeless. To this generalisation 

 my agreeable experience had at any rate furnished a notable 

 exception. 



It will not have escaped the reader's notice that the general 

 size of the mahseer that we caught in Muchee Bawan was 

 distinctly mediocre. It must, however, be remembered that 

 the Tawi is only a small tributary stream incapable of raising 

 really big fish, and the charm of the fishing lay in the 

 preference we had for quantity rather than size, as well as for 

 the opportunity of using lighter rods and tackle than are 

 indispensable for mahseer of larger size. For these bigger 

 fish we had to go to the Chenab itself, a much easier jaunt, 

 since the river lay only twelve miles from the station on a good 

 road, so that we could even canter out for an evening's fishing 

 after the day's work and be back the same night. Here it 

 was a matter of trolling from boats with a long line out, the 

 boat being pulled upstream by a rope. On bad days, when 

 the fish were not in the right humour, it was monotonous 



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