FLY FISHING. 41 



too soft, and are very apt to tangle. The line should be stout at 

 the upper end, gradually tapering towards the lower extremity, 

 which for three or four yards should be as fine as is consistent 

 with strength. It is a very good plan in the finer parts of the 

 line to substitute slight silkworm gut instead of horsehair, by 

 which means a great increase of strength may be obtained ; though 

 with proper care a very heavy trout may be subdued with a very 

 fine line even of horse-hair only; which indeed I always use, for 

 though not so strong as the silk and hair lines when new, yet it 

 is much less apt to get rotten by use, or when put by in a damp 

 state ; an act of carelessness few anglers are wholly guiltless of. 

 Too great care, indeed, cannot be taken to dry your line thorough- 

 ly when you leave off fishing, and it is always desirable, if possible, 

 to carry it a short distance on the rod after you have knocked off 

 before you finally wind up, in order that the line may not be wound 

 up on the reel when in a damp state ; and take care also when at 

 home to keep it in a dry place ; otherwise, the consequence of 

 your inattention most probably will be, that the next time you go 

 out, the first fish you hook worth catching will walk off with 

 some yards of line, as well as gut bottom and flies to boot, leav- 

 ing you to conjecture as pleasantly as you may as to his probable 

 weight and dimensions. 



Some anglers are fanciful as to the colour of their fly lines, but 

 in colour, merely as such, I have found no difference, though some 

 dyes certainly weaken the material. The black horse hair lines 

 are from the quality of the hair itself, coarser than the white, and 

 even, independently of this, have not so neat an appearance, 

 though I am not inclined to think the trout shun them on account 

 of their colour. The green lines look very pretty in the fishing 

 tackle shops, but they present a very different aspect after they 

 have been fished with a few times, as they soon acquire a dingy 

 faded appearance, and whether it be from any thing deleterious in 

 the dye or what other cause I know not, but certain it is, that I 

 have ever found them get rotten much sooner than any other lines 

 I have fished with. As for mixed lines composed of silk and hair, the 

 pepper and salt, being a mixture of chesnut horsehair and white 

 silk, I have always found the best of the kind ; and when entirely 

 of horse-hair, the red, the white, and the red and white mixed, all 

 seem to answer equally well. A line for trout fishing need not 

 generally speaking be more than from five and twenty to thirty 



