Chapt. iv. Bright water preferred. 35 



least bit tinged by a thunderstorm, still I bold to tbe opinion 

 tbat for a fisherman who keeps carefully out of sight clear 

 water is best, that in short the Mahseer takes best in clear 

 water, and for the reason, I fancy, that he sees best then. 

 It is not the season of the year that prevents the Mahseer 

 taking; it is not because the river has been swollen by 

 rainfall, and contains perhaps other more attractive bot- 

 tom feeding. The result on the Mahseer is just the same 

 when, without any swelling, the river is colored in the 

 middle of the fine season by the drainage from rice fields, 

 freshly ploughed and swamped for the second crop culti- 

 vation. This peculiarity of the Mahseer is more against 

 good fishermen than it is against tyros, because it is ex- 

 actly opposed to all the experiences of the former, and 

 those who do know something about fishing in England 

 are consequently more likely to be on the wrong tack in 

 India, than those who know nothing or next to nothing 

 about fishing in general, for they would naturally arrange 

 to fish at the very time when in India they are least like- 

 ly to have sport. I have however tested this question 

 pretty thoroughly, and am quite satisfied that it may be 

 laid down as a safe rule, that it is useless to fish for Mah- 

 seer except in clear water, and that the clearer the water 

 is, the better the prospect of sport. In this respect then 

 the English fisherman must forego his old creed, and adopt 

 a new faith as fully as did the thorough going young 

 scamp of an undergraduate who, unable otherwise to find 

 fit expression for the radical change for the better that 

 had taken place in his resolutions, informed his friends 



