388 THE ANGLER. 



plausibility about this, but in my experience I cannot say 

 that I have verified it, while the beaten hooks are un- 

 questionably the toughest. Double hooks are a clumsy 

 contrivance. One large hook is more killing than two 

 smaller ones. It has often struck me that where small 

 flies are used it would be desirable to have a compara- 

 tively large hook with a short shank. I have put this 

 theory into practice by filing off the end of the shank of a 

 hook. But manufacturers could, I think, turn out a 

 hook that would be an improvement on any that I have 

 seen. 



The hook should be tied on a loop of the very best 

 single gut, and the smaller this loop is the less it will 

 wear. Flies tied on large loops, or on single gut, wear 

 out very quickly at the head ; while a triple-gut loop is 

 rather clumsy for the sized flies used in Canadian waters. 

 Some fishermen have the loop at the head of the fly large 

 enough to admit of a loop at the end of the casting line 

 being passed through it. This I look upon as a clumsy 

 contrivance. There ought either to be no loop at the end 

 of the cast, or else each fly should have a foot link 

 attached to it ; in either case the loop at the head of the 

 fly should be just large enough to admit of a single thread 

 of salmon gut being passed through it. 



Many fishermen maintain that there is nothing in a 

 neat fly ; that everything depends on the colours. I do not 

 quite agree with this theory, although well aware that at 

 certain times and in certain places salmon will rise at 

 almost anything. I once killed a fish under very peculiar 

 circumstances ; I had neither rod, reel, nor tackle of any 

 kind, but a whipcord line and a book. I improvised a 



