SALMON FISHING WITH THE FLY. 193 



CASTING LINES. 



The selection of a suitable casting line (i.e. the gut line that 

 connects the reel line with the fly) requires great judgment and 

 care on the part of the angler. If the water should be high or 

 stained after a fresh, the strongest lines may be used, and finer 

 ones in proportion as the water gets lower and clearer. 



During the early spring months salmon are keener to rise at 

 the fly than at any other time of the year, they will take larger 

 flies than later in the season, and do not seem to care what the 

 casting line is made of ; but during the later spring and summer 

 months, when the water is very low and clear, they are more 

 particular, and very fine casting lines and flies, not much bigger 

 than trout flies, must be used. To land a big salmon in low 

 water with a light rod and fine tackle, is a feat any salmon fisher 

 may be proud of. 



Treble-twisted or plaited gut casting lines are generally con- 

 sidered the strongest, but these are not to be trusted. Some 

 of them will doubtless last a long time, but many are made up 

 of inferior cast-off gut which is difficult to detect in the piece, 

 and would not stand a week's work. It is also difficult to twist 

 gut so evenly that when a fish is being played, an equal strain 

 shall be made to bear on each strand. 1 



Lines made of two strands of carefully selected round sal- 

 mon gut of equal thickness, untwisted, are much stronger than 

 most of the treble gut casting lines that are generally used, but 

 great care must be taken in making these lines, as when the 

 links are knotted together it will be found that, nine times out 

 of ten, one of the strands will be longer than the other, conse- 

 quently the shorter strand would have to bear the whole strain 

 when a fish is being played, and the other strand would be 

 useless. This can be avoided if the following directions are 

 attended to : after the strands that are to compose the line 



1 I call a piece of gut taken singly ' a strand,' and when made up in a casting 

 line 'a link.' 



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