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CHAPTER III. 



LINES AND REELS. 



Trolling lines — Ancient lines, dressings for trolling lines. Reel-lines for 

 fly fishing — Dressed line, silk and hair, spun cotton. Reel-lines for 

 bottom fishing — ' Nottingham line.' Gut lines — Choice of gut, 

 ' drawn gut'. Staining gut — Defective stains ; Mr. Stewart's stain 

 recommended red water-stain ; other stains. Hair — Not to be re- 

 commended ; for any kind of fishing ; mode of dyeing ; dyeing 

 feathers. Gimp — Different qualities and sizes ; method of staining. 

 Rxels — Wooden reels or ' pirns,' multipliers, plain reels, check reels, 

 aluminium reels. A suggested improvement in reels. 



Reel Lines for Trolling. 



Very little seems to be known about ancient lines, 

 whether for trolling, or any other fishing. We learn, 

 however, that they were sometimes made of hemp, 

 sometimes of horsehair, and perhaps also occasionally of 

 byssits — a stringy substance by which certain species of 

 mussels and pinnae adhere to the rocks, — but certainly 

 not of gut. That they were finely twisted, however, the 

 epithets ^^ eiiplokavws!' '' linostrophos',' &c., sufficiently 

 indicate. Finally they were very short ; often barely 

 the length of the rod, which was itself shorter than ours. 

 Amongst our own predecessors in the gentle craft 

 great differences of opinion existed as to the qualities 



