Chapt. xii. How to tackle them. 149 



have made the fish pay for it eventually, for, when a 

 shoal has been passing, I have had them out as fast as 

 ever I could land them and throw in my. line. It is 

 "a short life and a merry one." Have good stout gimp, and 

 let there be two trebles, besides the lip hook, on your flight 

 of hooks, instead of only one treble as for Mahseer. The 

 fishes' mouths are hard, and closely set with teeth, so 

 that it is as well to have the extra chance of an extra 

 hook. 



The fish you will take this way are various. One of 

 them runs from three, or four, to thirty pounds. Whether 

 he grows bigger than that, or not, I don't myself know; and 

 am unwilling to give lax and fervid native descriptions. 

 But fully thirty pounds in weight I have seen them my- 

 self on terra firma. This is apparently a Serranus, for it 

 is very similar to the first plate in "Day's Fishes of Mala- 

 "bar and Canara." It is called by the Canara fishermen 

 Kulanji when small, and Madavu when large; just as we 

 use the names Jack and Pike. I have a floating suspicion 

 that it is synonymous with the "Barmin", of which I hear 

 such awful tackle-breaking stories from Malabar. A good 

 fisherman there, is well satisfied from experience, that a 

 salmon cannot hold a candle to a Barmin in strength. 

 The natives in fishing for them use a strong cord, with a 

 large sea hook, on a piece of bell wire. But then they 

 use much direct force in pulling in their fish, because 

 they have very crude ideas about the "suaviter in modo, 

 fortiter in re" principle of running tackle on a reel, which 

 enables you in time to kill a heavy fish on a light line. 



