222 ELEMENTS OF ANGLING. 



line, but carries the other fairly well. On the other 

 hand, I have a powerful little I4ft. rod of well-dis- 

 tributed action, which at a pinch could manage the 

 heavier line, and is we(l suited by the lighter one. 

 The moral, I think, is that the light top and stiff 

 butt are a mistake. There is yet another type of 

 rod, the Castleconnell, which is very heavy in the 

 top and very thin in the butt. This is a fine 

 weapon in the hands of those who know how to 

 get the most out of it, but it is not everyone's 

 fancy. On the whole, the golden mean is best here, 

 .as in most other things. 



Salmon gut is expensive, and it is well to 

 acquiesce in the fact and not to economise in this 

 direction. A good three-yard cast of single gut 

 costs about ys., but it comes rather cheaper to use 

 a cast made up of ij yards of twisted gut and 

 ij yards of single, as most men do. It is also a 

 saving to use " tippets," that is to say, odd strands 

 of gut with a loop at the end which is fastened to a 

 loop at the end of the cast. The other end of the 

 tippet is knotted to the fly (by the "figure eight 71 

 knot if the fly has a gut loop [see Plate I, fig. 8.], 

 or the Turle knot if it has a metal eye), and it is 

 not so grave a sacrifice to cut off an inch or two now 

 and again. A good cast will outlive many tippets. 

 Of the expense of salmon flies I have spoken 



