CONCLUDING THE LIST OF TACKLE. 213 



gut be round, clear, and perfect, and as strong as you can 

 procure. 



2 horse-hair casting-lines, from eighty to one hundred feet 

 long each, braided in the form of a whip-lash, and nearly one 

 fourth of an inch in diameter in the centre. Pritchard Broth- 

 ers make this upper casting-line to perfection. It is light, 

 and its shape greatly assists casting, while it is not so liable 

 to sink and drown as the silk, or silk and hair line, though 

 protected with varnish. This casting-line is a desideratum 

 not to be neglected. Before splicing it to your reel-line, cut 

 off from the latter as many yards as you add by the upper 

 casting-line. 



6 dozen, or nearly a gross, of assorted salmon-flies, and a 

 quantity of materials to enable you to duplicate the size and 

 color of either ; for salmon of different pools in the same 

 river have different tastes, and keep changing so frequently 

 that a Montreal fly of brown mallard wings, claret body, and 

 golden pheasant top-knot for tail, which they curved their 

 velvet tails at yesterday, is the favorite to-day, to be super- 

 seded to-morrow, perhaps, by a Tweed fly. When the angler 

 runs nearly out of a favorite fly, he selects a hook of the same 

 size and combines the same colors to mount it with; and 

 though it be not artistically tied, it generally proves success- 

 ful, for salmon do not scrutinize very closely when they wit- 

 ness the combination of colors which they admire. When yel- 

 low is the favorite color, and you have run out of flies of that 

 tint, tie a new fly, or, if in a hurry, add yellow to another fly. 



1 hank of round, clear, and heavy silk- worm gut, stained. 



GAFF-HOOKS. 



A is the salmon-bend gaff, and B the striped bass. The dis- 

 tance across the bend of the first is 2-J- inches, and 2j across 

 the bend of B. The screws are of steel or brass, to fit into a 

 handle six feet long, and composed of two joints. The gaffs 

 should be heavy, and from one fourth to three eighths of an 

 inch in diameter in the heaviest parts. 



