CHAPTER XII 



LANDING-NETS AND OTHER 

 EQUIPMENT 



In Oppian's Halleutlca, a poem of the second 

 century A. D., the outfit of the perfect angler is 

 summed up in the following couplet: 



The slender woven net, the osier creel, 



The tapering reed, the line, and barbed steel. 



Brethren, I would invite your attention for a few 

 minutes to the consideration of that net. 



Ever had it catch in the brush, stretch its rubber 

 loop to the limit, then let go and, zip ! soak you one 

 in the back? or dangle, whether at the front or side, 

 where you continually are getting tangled up in it, 

 or where your flies become caught therein with a 

 devilish persistency? Sure! Then you vowed that 

 henceforth you would proceed netless and beach 

 'em, only to encounter immediately thereafter that 

 biggest trout of all, in a deep, dark pool, with beach- 

 ing possibilities " forty miles away " and you lost 

 him ! Right-o ! 



Any reader who, like the writer, ever has lost 

 three landing-nets in four-seasons' trouting, will be 

 interested to learn that a most serviceable article is 



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