254 THE YOUNG ANGLEE. 



kinds of fish, cork floats must be employed. If the young angler 

 prefers making cork floats to purchasing them, he must procure 

 a piece of fine-grained sound cork, and bore a hole through it with 

 a small red-hot iron, then put in a quill which will exactly fit the 

 aperture, and afterwards cut the cork into the shape of a pear. 

 When this is finished, he must grind it smooth with pumice-stone, 

 and paint and varnish it ; and if he uses two or three bright 

 colours in the painting he will add much to the gaiety of its appear- 

 ance. The cork float should swim perpendicularly in the water, 

 so that it may betray the slightest nibble, and must be carefully poised 

 by fastening a few shot on the line ; the sizes of shot proper for this 

 purpose are from swan shot down to No. 4; they should be split 

 about half-way through with a small chisel, so as to make a gap 

 sufficiently wide to admit the line, and when the latter is put in, the 

 gap should be closed with a pair of pliers, though the teeth will do. 



REELS. 



A reel is very useful, as with its assistance parts of a river may be 

 reached which could not otherwise be attempted, it enables the angler 

 also to play his fish with the greatest ease and certainty. When 

 purchasing a reel, a multiplying one should be selected, as it is 

 superior to all others, and enables the angler to lengthen or shorten 

 his line rapidly. It must be kept clean and well oiled, and great 

 care taken that no grit of any kind gets into it. 



Hooks are of various patterns and sizes, beginning at No. 1, 

 which is the largest salmon size, and ending at No. 14, called the 

 smallest midge. The round-bend hook is the shape most used in 

 England, while in Scotland the sneck-bend appears to be the 

 favourite. Limerick hooks are excellent ; and those made in Dublin, 

 marked with 2 F's, 2 B's, and so on, are second to none. A bad 

 hook, be it remembered, is worse than a bad knife, only fit to be 

 thrown away. The following table shows the sizes of the hooks 

 most suitable to the various fish : 



Barbel, 7, 8, 9. Flounders, 3. Perch, 7. 



Bleak, 11, 12, 13. Grayling, 10. Roach, 10, 11, 12. 



Bream, 10. Gudgeon, 9, 10. Rudd, 10. 



Carp, 7, 8, 9. Loaches, 13. Ruffe, 10. 



Chub, 8, 9. Miller's thumb, 13. Smelt, 9. 



Dace, 10, 11, 12. Minnow, 13. Tench, 9, 10. 



Eels, 8. Midge, 14. Trout, 6. 



When fastening the hooks on your lines, use strong, but fine 

 silk, and if you can get it near the colour of your bait, so much the 

 better ; wax the silk thoroughly with shoemaker's wax, and wrap it 

 four or five times round the body of the hook, then place the gut or 

 hair on the inside of your hook, and continue winding the silk 

 tightly round till you have wrapped it about three parts down the 

 hook. 



