SPINNING TACKLES. 17 



by impairing its brilliancy and attractiveness, rendering 

 it flabby and inelastic. Upon the fish they operated 

 only as fulcrums by which he was enabled to work out 

 the hold of such hooks as were already fast. The great 

 size also, and the defective bends of many of the hooks 

 used contributed materially to swell the proportion of 

 losses, as it should be recollected that to strike a No. 20 

 hook fairly over the barb, requires at least three times the 

 force that is required to strike in a No. 10 ; and that this 

 disparity is increased when the hooks are used in triangles. 

 A Jack, say, has taken a spinning-bait dressed with a flight 

 of three or four of these large triangles, and a sprinkling 

 of single hooks — perhaps eleven or twelve in all. The 

 bait probably lies between his jaws grasped cross- 

 wise, and therefore the points of at least six of 

 these hooks will most likely be pressed by the fish's 

 mouth, whilst the bait also to which they are attached 

 is held firmly in his teeth. The whole of this combined 

 resistance must be overcome — and that at one stroke^ 

 and sharply — before a single point can be buried above 

 the barb. 



The grand principle in the construction of all spinning- 

 tackle is the use of the flying triangle as distinguished 

 from that whipped upon the central link. A flight con- 

 structed with flying triangles can never fail to be 

 tolerably certain, in landing at least, a fish once struck. 

 There are, however, many degrees of excellence in such 

 flights, even in the item of " landing ;" and as regards 



c 



