170 FISHING IN AMERICAN WATERS. 



casting-line show where the lengths of gut are tied thus, 

 from the stretcher-fly to the first drop are four lengths of 

 gut, and three or four lengths from the first drop to the 

 h^nd-fly. These distances will be changed to suit taste 

 and the distance of cast. For long casts, the drops should 

 be a yard apart. 



No. 18. A tie for uniting lengths of gut, so that they will 

 break at any other part as easily as at the tie. Tie a knot 

 in the end of each length of gut ; lap them an inch, and 

 wind them closely between the knots with white waxed 

 silk. This is the best tie for a salmon leader or a trout 

 casting-line. Casting-lines should be made of stained gut, 

 the gut selected so as to taper regularly from the reel-line 

 to the stretcher-fly ; and the drops should be of fine, clear, 

 round gut, stained to the shade of the casting-line. It is 

 an indication of very bad taste in a fishing-tackle maker to 

 offer finely-tapered and stained casting-lines and flies tied 

 to coarse gut, and not dyed or shaded to the tint of the 

 casting-line. All should be in harmonious keeping, from 

 the reel-line to the casting-line and drops. For casting 

 from a boat or from the clear margin of a stream, the cast- 

 ing-line should be nine feet in length, or even a foot or two 

 more, only have a care not to make it so long that, with the 

 bend of a twelve-foot rod, you can not reel up sufficiently 

 close to bring your fish within reach of your landing-net. 

 For rough fishing on a stream of bramble margins a cast- 

 ing-line of from six to seven feet in length, and one drop 

 besides the stretcher, may be sufficient. Many anglers dis- 

 pense with drops, and fish with one fly only on some streams 

 in the interior of Pennsylvania, Maine, New Hampshire, and 

 throughout the region in New York known as the Adiron- 

 . dacks, which is about forty miles square, and one of the 

 greatest fish and game regions in America. 



HOW TO STAIN SILK-WORM GUT. 



Gut may be stained by leaving it in a strong decoction of 



