Varieties of Gut. 9 



I am thoroughly opposed to the use of dyed 

 gut, so much vaunted by almost every writer on 

 angling. Natural gut, if sufficiently transparent, 

 round, and even in substance, is undoubtedly the 

 best for all angling purposes. This, however, is 

 not always to be obtained in the shops, and drawn 

 gut is frequently substituted for it. The great 

 variety in the stains recommended some anglers 

 advocating a red water-stain, others a slate tint, 

 others again a 'blue or a walnut tint, and so on 

 proves, at all events, that there is no agreement as 

 to the precise stain least likely to be seen by the 

 fish. I maintain that natural, transparent gut 

 not the white glistening material that is so fre- 

 quently sold is less visible to the eye of the wary 

 trout in clear water than any coloured gut can 

 possibly be. This any one may prove for himself, 

 by placing two hairs of gut, the one dyed and the 

 other in its natural condition, in a crystal vessel of 

 pure water, and looking at them carefully from all 

 positions. He will find that even when the hairs 

 are suspended a short distance from the surface of 

 the water, and viewed from below, the pure trans- 

 parent gut is scarcely visible, while the dyed 

 material is detected at once. The greater part 

 of the gut sold in shops is really unserviceable 

 for fine fishing in clear water, on account of its 

 coarseness and irregularity. Fine colourless gut is 



