24 Fly-rods and Fly-tackle. 



fishing and its appliances. Somebody must be wrong, 

 and it would be absurd for me to intimate or suppose 

 that I alone was exempt from mistake. Therefore, when 

 an opinion is stated its foundation is also given, trusting 

 to that tribunal, the great fraternity of anglers from 

 whose judgment in these matters there is no appeal 

 to sustain me when in the right, and to consign me to 

 merited oblivion when in the wrong. This course I 

 have followed, and shall continue as far as permitted by 

 the' consideration that man is not immortal, and that the 

 sole occupation of this life is not to read books on an- 

 gling. 



But to come back to the point. 



I would warn my brother anglers, novice and expert 

 alike, against those small hooks (so tempting when em- 

 bodied in a small fly, because the hook is so well con- 

 cealed) in which the distance across the bend, from the 

 barb to the shank, is but little exceeded by the length 

 of the shank itself. 



Apply one of these hooks to a flat surface, as shown 

 in Fig. 6, on page 21. At once it is apparent that the 

 angle of penetration may be made to depend altogether 

 on the length of the shank (b c in that figure) ; and that 

 if the shank of the hook there shown terminated at f (it 

 would then show about the proportions of the hooks re- 

 ferred to), the forward edge of the barb a would be near- 

 ly perpendicular, and its tendency to penetrate, or in 

 other words to take hold, very slight. If we add to this 

 the fact that these hooks are made of very thin wire, and 

 consequently must spring some, thus enlarging the dis- 

 tance across the curve still more, we obtain a result even 

 more vicious than that shown at the left hand of Fig. 7. 



No form of bend, be it never so excellent, can remedy 



