44 



SALMON AND TROUT. 



Another and still simpler attachment for the drop-fly, which 

 in practice I usually adopt as being much the quickest, is, 

 with a double half-hitch (^ of the knot in fig. 2), to knot on 

 the drop-fly fly uppermost to the casting line (fig. 5). On 

 this knot being pulled tight, and slipped down as far as the 

 next juncture on the line, it will be found to answer exceed- 

 ingly well, although the point of junction is one which will 

 always have to be carefully looked at from time to time, as the 

 friction of the drop-fly knot is apt to fray away the link to 

 which it is attached. For salmon fishing I never myself use a 

 second fly, unless by any chance the river or lake I am fishing 

 be also tenanted by sea trout, and then, of course, the fly is 

 a comparatively small one, for which the last-named attach- 

 ment, fig. 5, will answer every purpose or slightly better, 

 perhaps, the fly may be attached above one of the knots with 

 a loop, as shown in fig. 6 ; or, stronger still, as in fig. 7, an 

 attachment which also gives the maximum stand-out-at-right- 

 angle inclination to the fly, and the principle of which, as applied 

 to casting lines with the ordinary splice, I mentioned in the 

 6 Modern Practical Angler.' Fig. 8 explains itself. 



FIG, 6. 



FIG. 8. 



HG. 7. 



Nothing can well be more clumsy than the knots usually 

 employed in joining the strands of a salmon casting line, and 

 their inefficiency in the matter of strength is on a par with 

 their unsightliness. In the ' Book of the Pike,' 1865, I gave 

 diagrams and explanations of the buffer knot above referred 



