A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



work, and, as we invariably sat facing the west, the persecuting 

 glare of the sun on the water made us yet more impatient of 

 our ill-luck. Yet there were the other days on which we came 

 in for great reward, for fish weighing from lo to 50 lb. were 

 quite within the range of moderate expectation, while monsters 

 of far greater weight were known to dwell in the river, and we 

 were ever in hope of hooking one of these. Many we took 

 out of the Chenab in our time, but never the monster. In the 

 end, however, my regiment held the record with a fish of 52 lb., 

 though we were handsomely beaten in actual best take for a 

 single day, for the CO. of another gallant regiment, able to 

 grant himself leave when we could not get away, and never 

 foregoing the privilege, landed one fine day the much-envied 

 score of sixteen fish to his own rod. Great fish they were, too, 

 the total weight of them being nothing less than 200 lb. No 

 wonder we found some little difficulty in congratulating him ! 

 Here, too, in the Chenab, the conditions under which we 

 caught our fish were ever a mystery. Water, weather and 

 season would be apparently identical on the days of great 

 success and those other days with never a fish. Some days 

 we would troll over the same stretch of water times and again 

 without result. Then, all of a sudden, the fish would come at 

 the bait as if possessed. This was the case on the day that 

 gave me my first forty-pounder. My companion, already 

 into one which proved almost as heavy, had landed in order 

 the better to play his fish, and I, resisting the usual temptation 

 of offering good advice, essayed to prove my pet theory, that 

 mahseer have a certain moment at which they must feed, by 



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