Casting the Fly 365 



Reuben Wood, and others, used and highly 

 recommended it, but many fly fishers are so 

 built, that they want to give the trout all the 

 chance it has for liberty, after being hooked, and 

 the automatic reel does much of the work, partic- 

 ularly in retrieving, that is incumbent upon the 

 angler to do, if he is in full sympathy with the 

 fish that he has fastened. If he is not, he goes 

 afishing merely for the pleasure of killing some- 

 thing, just as we sometimes see children, having a 

 similar instinct, kill flies on the window-pane in 

 the gloaming, for the sport of it. 



In selecting a line you cannot go astray, for 

 the enamelled silk waterproof is the best you can 

 get, both for bait and fly fishing ; you will want 

 not less than thirty yards of the size known as " E." 



In buying leaders, select those that are made 

 of the best gut ; the strands should be perfectly 

 round, and transparent, and colorless as glass ; 

 " it should be hard to the teeth, and free from 

 unravelled fibres and knotty roughness." I quote 

 the words of an old angling friend who knew 

 what he was talking about. For fly-fishing pur- 

 poses I use leaders of nine feet, but for bait fish- 

 ing, six, or even three, feet will be a sufficient 

 length. 



