SOME GAME FISHES OF INDIA 



One of the best known authorities on the rod in India, Henry 

 Sullivan Thomas, P.E.S., has told ns that there is ' as good 

 fishing to be had in India as in England ' ; though from the very- 

 nature of things it is, of course, very different. One writer gives 

 the palm to the mahseer, whose praises have been sung by 

 Kipling and many whose fortunes have been cast in India where 

 everything, even the fishes, are strange to the man from the 

 north or west. This author places the Indian fish ahead of the 

 salmon in its play, and gives a most interesting number of details. 



The Indian fishes include a tarpon, though a small one, many 

 carp-Uke fishes of extraordinary size ; some that climb trees, 

 others that jump from rock to rock, as the PeriopJithalmus and 

 the strange murral, which is not at all discomforted when the 

 water dries up in its pool, the OpMocepJialus (which is its scientific 

 name) going down into the mud, forming a cell about itself, and 

 lying dormant until the water returns. I was told by a naturalist 

 that he brought one of these mud cases to England in his trunk, 

 where he placed it in water, the fish coming out in good condition. 



One who has read Professor Moseley's Voyage of the Challenger 

 win recall his angling experiences with the flying gurnard, when 

 the beautifully coloured fish seized his bait and a few moments 

 later dashed into the air and soared about until it was jerked 

 back into what might be assumed its native element. In the 

 land of the little jumping goby, referred to, it is possible for the 

 angler, with crab bait, to creep up on the muddy shores and 

 angle out of water ; or it is among the possibilities to lay some 

 angling plan to fish for the climbing perch in the palms it is said 

 to frequent, at times high above the water. Here one may 

 meet the quaint Anahas travelling across country from pool to 

 pool. One can but acknowledge the angling possibilities are at 

 least bizarre in India. 



The mahseer is often called the salmon of India, and specimens 

 of sixty pounds have been taken ; but it is of the carp family 

 and is caught in all the lull streams of India from Assam to the 

 Punjab, and in nearly all the streams of Southern India. It is 



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