20 SALMON AND TROUT. 



I have before explained why I feel released from the 

 necessity of reprinting here the arguments pro and con these 

 various systems viz., that to judge by the success of my own 

 turn-down eyed hooks, and the opinions of fly-fishers and 

 tackle makers, so far as I am able to gather them, that system 

 is in rapid course of superseding all others. If this is the case 

 with the original imperfect patterns, how much more likely is it 

 to be so now, when, by the introduction of the up-turn shank, 

 the hook has been, so to speak, perfected. . . . 



To return, therefore, to my text. 



The considerations already adduced in regard to the proper 

 form of a large salmon hook hold good, c&teris paribus, and 

 with increased cogency, in the case of a small trout hook, where 

 of course the mechanical difficulties, first of hooking, and 

 secondly of keeping hooked, are enormously increased. They 

 are increased, in fact, exactly in the ratio of the size of the 

 hook as compared with the size of the fish's mouth ... a 

 number ooo is clearly much smaller in proportion to the 

 mouth of a large trout than a number 17 or 18 is to the 

 mouth of a well-grown salmon. The exact calculation I 

 leave to the curious in figures. My system of eyed hooks 

 is, however, applicable to all the ordinary hook-bends with- 

 out exception, so that those who prefer one or the other 

 of them to mine can reject the pattern and yet adopt the 

 principle. 



The fly-fisher who is sufficiently interested in the subject of 

 hooks to read this chapter at all, will, I may assume, have read 

 the preceding pages which deal, under the head of salmon- 

 hooks, with what I may call the ' natural history ' of my system. 

 He will have seen the diagrams of the original bend of these 

 down-eyed hooks, noticed the points wherein they were 

 explained to be deficient, and grasped the change of principle 

 introduced in the new patent up-turn shank by which they 

 were perfected, including the insuring of the full * gape ' of the 

 hook, and no more. I need not, therefore, go again over the 

 same ground. It may, nevertheless, be well to illustrate, on 



