80 Spin slow with light tackle. Chapt. vi. 



makes no effort to overtake him. So little notice does he 

 take, although the small fish has come close by him, that 

 you are disposed to think he is not a taking fish, not on 

 the feed, but a thoughtful beggar reflecting on the im- 

 moral tendencies of cannibalism, and seriously meditat- 

 ing the giving of it up. But keep your eye on him now, 

 as that other little fish which is sauntering leisurely up- 

 wards comes by him, there is the slightest possible un- 

 dulation of his tail, then suddenly one lightning dash, 

 and the small fish has undergone deglutition. That is 

 evidently the motion that pays. Imitate it then. But 

 you dare not trail your bait so lazily, so listlessly, about 

 in bright water if you have a lot of obvious hooks. For 

 slow spinning in clear water the necessity for light tackle 

 with but few hooks, and those well concealed, is there- 

 fore imperative; consequently I prefer the method of bait- 

 ing with one hook given on page 4-9, to that with a lip 

 hook also on page 52. And I prefer the second arrange- 

 ment too, with the lip hook and only one treble, to flights 

 of hooks invented by English fishermen for English waters, 

 to which they are better suited than to the bright waters 

 and bright skies of the Indian angler. Besides its being 

 unnatural for a predatory fish to give chase to, and hunt 

 down, a small fish or bait that is passing at such speed 

 as to indicate a preparedness for flight, and to put him 

 at a disadvantage for seizing it at a single short dash, 

 like a tiger's bound upon its prey, it is also to be consider- 

 ed that he may not have seen it at all, or it has passed 

 out of his sight, or reach, all too quickly. 



