FLY-FISHIXG CASUALTIES. 11 



portion to its length, for you thus gain power or give 

 line with greater freedom ; nothing is more unsightly 

 or more awkward than a long narrow-barrelled reel. 

 Brass is the metal usually employed for their con- 

 struction, but the newly-invented aluminium bronze is 

 infinitely to be preferred, for it does not corrode or 

 discolour with the action of the atmosphere, and it is 

 less liable to suffer from a blow or fall; mischances 

 that the fly-fisher's paraphernalia, more particularly in 

 a rocky mountainous country, are especially liable to, 

 when following the course of a trout brook, for stones 

 will be slippery and fishermen have been known to 

 take too much grog. Who among our expert salmon 

 trout fishermen cannot remember having obtained 

 a frightful cropper when precipitously following up 

 or down stream a heavy fish he was fast to ? I do 

 not require to tax my memory greatly to recall half- 

 a-dozen such casualties. There are various methods 

 of attaching the reel to the rod. Of none do I approve 

 so highly as that by which the reel is held fast in a 

 shallow indentation by a movable band. In those 

 cases where the butt is pierced, or the reel held on the 

 rod by a brass band attached to it, which closes with a 

 screw, the nuts are constant^ getting lost or loose, 

 through the thread being worn out; moreover, the 

 hand not unfrequently gets chafed by coming in con- 

 tact with the edges or termination of the screw. 



On the subject of fly-lines there is great diversity of 

 opinion. Of whatever materials they are composed 

 they should taper. Hair and silk I was at one time 

 much in favour of; but after a lengthened trial I found 

 one .great objection the two materials had not the 

 same amount of elasticity, so that a heavy strain would 



