36 MODERN PRACTICAL ANGLER. 
greater even than the other, as nothing is more certainly 
disastrous than a slack line, and nothing more probable 
than the occurrence of the contingency referred to when 
fish have to be followed rapidly over broken ground. 
These are radical faults—vzces would not be too strong a 
term—inherent in the principle of all “plain” reels, and 
inseparable from them. 
They are, however, entirely obviated by the check 
system ; and check reels should therefore be the only 
ones ever employed for any kind of heavy fishing, 
whether with bait or fly. With this reel the line is 
entirely independent of the hand, by which indeed it is 
very seldom desirable that it should be touched in any 
way. All that the hands have to do is to keep the point 
of the rod well up, and a steady strain on the fish ; and 
eyes and attention are thus left free to take care of their 
owner’s neck—a practical advantage which those who 
have chased a salmon down the crage’d and slippery 
channel of a Highland river, or a strong Pike along the 
margin of a Hampshire ‘“ Water Meadow” will know 
how to appreciate. A check winch, in fact, does two- 
thirds of the fisherman’s work for him, and may almost 
be left to kill by itself; it acts upon the golden rule of 
never giving an inch of line unless it is ¢aken, and when 
really required pays it out smoothly and rapidly to the 
exact extent necessary, and no more. The even check 
prevents the line “over running” itself in the one case, 
or sticking fast in the other; and when it becomes 
