FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. i6 , 1909. 
I 14 
Saturday, January 9th, 1909 
TEN MEN TEAM RACE 
New York Athletic Club vs. Cresceivt Athletic Club 
The high score on both teams made with 
Charles Daly Guns 
One gentleman using the New Single Barrel Ventilated Rib Gun 
and the other a regular Daly Hammerless Double Gun 
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THE NARRATIVE OF A SPORTSMAN 
Inter-Ocean Hunting Tales 
- EDGAR F. RANDOLPH — 
A series of hunting reminiscences of rare charm for the sportsman and for the 
wider circle which delights in true tales of outdoor life. With none of the high 
coloring and exaggeration which give a false note to so many hunting stories, Mr. 
Randolph’s book is never lacking in interest. 
He covers the field of sport with the rifle, east and west, drawing a vivid word 
picture of life in the open, subordinating his own exploits to the main incidents of 
outdoor experience, giving much valuable information on camp life, hunting and the 
habits of wild game, and continually delighting the reader with the freshness of his 
viewpoint. 
This book will strike a sympathetic chord in the memory of every big-game 
hunter of experience and will prove of real value to the novice who is planning an 
excursion into the wild. 
Cloth, 170 Pages. Richly Illustrated. Postpaid, $1.00 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY 
When writing say you saw the ad. in “Forest and Stream.” 
mained exposed. With this simple but very ef¬ 
fective tackle I fished the eddies, allowing the 
bait to sink to the bottom and circle slowly 
round. A dead bait used thus will produce sport 
when the water is too clouded for- spinning to 
be of the least use. My tactics proved success¬ 
ful, and so long as the river was not absolutely 
red, I found I could always catch something. 
Every now and then an extra heavy shower 
higher up would send the Giri down like pea 
soup, and whenever this happened I could catch 
nothing at all. 
There was a nice pool into which the little 
tributary, where I caught my bait, flowed, and 
here I got several nice fish. Playing these vigor¬ 
ous mahseer in the strong stream was very 
rough work for my little trout rods. One of 
them, after successfully negotiating a six- 
pounder, was brought to grief by the last 
plunges of a very violent mahseer, which, how¬ 
ever, I managed to get ashore in spite of my 
broken tip. The fish proved to be only 4^^ 
pounds, but I found it was by no means the 
bigger ones which gave the most trouble. 
One evening, just before sunset, the water 
had cleared so much that I was tempted to try 
a spoon in a run near two ‘‘panchakkies,” or 
miniature flour mills, just above the village. I 
used a pear-shaped spoon 1% inches long, made 
by the native armorer of the 28th P. 1 . This 
man always made his spoons of lighter metal 
than the usual ones turned out by Luscombe, 
and so I was able to cast this comparatively 
large size nicely with my io[ 4 -foot rod. Almost 
at the first throw I hooked a mahseer, which 
went off at such a pace down stream that he 
got out some fifty yards of line before I could 
stop him. This fish in that rapid current made 
a tremendous fight, and I was astonished when, 
on coming ashore, he proved only pounds. 
A 2[^2-pounder, and a third of pounds fol¬ 
lowed in rapid succession, the 2j/2-pounder also 
making a splendid fight for his size. Possibly 
there are no more powerful fish for their weight 
than these comparatively small mahseer. Be¬ 
sides their extraordinary strength, they have al¬ 
ways struck me as being much quicker in getting 
away than a trout. Fishing with fly over the 
weedy shallows at the head of Bhim Tal Lake 
I found the i-pound and 2-pound mahseer in¬ 
finitely quicker in making up their minds to go 
to weed than a trout in similar water. A i- 
pound trout risen among weeds can be hustled 
into the open while he is still thinking; but a 
i-pound mahseer makes up his mind instanter, 
and dashes for the nearest cover directly he 
feels the hook. These lake fish, however vigpr- 
ous though they are, never exhibit that lightning 
quickness in their first rush that astonishes one 
in the mahseer of the mountain rivers. Your 
line tightens, and then instantly behold yards of 
it are gene, while the reel is singing that shrill 
note which only the arrow-like fight of a mah¬ 
seer down stream can produce. 
I do not think that anyone would call the 
Kharganu end of the Giri valley pretty. The 
country, to us, seemed quite forbidding _ and 
mournful. The hills rise steeply on all sides; 
they are grim, stony slopes, clad sparsely with 
thorn bushes and cactus. ,This latter is of that 
elongated, angular kind, which grows into quite 
large trees and is so peculiarly hideous. Here 
and there on the river itself and along its tribu¬ 
tary brooks were pretty corners. A low cliff, 
perhaps, covered with drooping ferns or a bank 
of emerald moss. Just below Kharganu village 
the valley widens out, and there is a stretch of 
low-lying cultivation; this is carefully irrigated 
with long channels cut along the hillsides, so 
as to bring a constant stream from the higher 
reaches of the river. 
The villagers have a curious custom, which 
deserves record. In our willow grove were sev¬ 
eral low huts made of brushwood; into these 
little rivulets of cold water were led from the 
overflow of the spring. All through the middle 
of the day these huts would be occupied by 
men, women and children, all lying fast asleep, 
and each with a trickle of cold water falling 
on their heads! I asked the reason, and was 
told that it was the local way of keeping cool 
in the hot weather, and that the chilly water of 
