186 THE PRACTICAL ANGLER 



purposes, and the strong white glittering ones set 

 aside for loch-fishing, as if gut could not be got 

 sufficiently thick, and a loch- trout would seize a fly 

 at the end of anything. It is quite true that 

 stronger gut may be used with success in lochs 

 than in rivers, yet the finer the gut the better the 

 chance of success. In all kinds of angling, it is of 

 the utmost importance to have the connecting link 

 between the lure and the rod as little seen as possible. 

 Their common use of thick gut is one of the reasons 

 why anglers meet with no success when there is no 

 wind, and with but little when there is only a gentle 

 breeze. It is erring on the safe side to use fine gut, 

 and we never yet got a hank of gut which we con- 

 sidered too fine for dressing loch-flies on. In some 

 lochs we have caught more trout than anglers 

 accustomed to fish them every day, simply because 

 we used fine gut, and they used it very thick and 

 white. 



The rod for fly-fishing from a boat need not be 

 longer than thirteen or fourteen feet, as that is long 

 enough to keep the angler out of sight; and a very 

 long rod is cumbrous to manage. In angling from 

 the bank, a rod of two feet longer might be advis- 

 able, in order to reach the places where the trout 

 lie. The reel should be large enough to contain 

 fifty or sixty yards of line, for if you get a large 

 fish, you must exhaust it by length of line, since you 

 cannot follow it as on a river. But there is no 

 occasion to have either the line or the triple-gut 

 casting-line thicker than what is used for ordinary 



