to his rod.* Now, this is no fancy, and these are no imaginary 

 cases. I have known them happen half a dozen times and 

 more ; on the other hand, perhaps, the rod being rather 

 limber, will not support a heavy line, and the angler goes on 

 threshing the water, coming down on the surface with a 

 splash sufficient to frighten away every fish within fifty 

 yards, all the while straining and warping his top all to pieces, 

 as it keeps bending and groaning under the infliction, and 

 perhaps actually in the end does smash from pure weariness, 

 and then, " Oh, the wood is rotten ! " and " Confound that 

 rogue of a rod maker ! " and the poor tackle maker gets a 

 bad name through the fisherman's ignorance and carelessness. 

 And I have seen this happen too, over and over again. A 

 too heavy line in a month will wear a rod out more than 

 years of fair angling. If in throwing the line when it goes 

 back, and is about to be urged forwards, it feels in the least 

 degree heavy, it is too heavy for the rod. If none of the above 

 contingencies occur in their worst phases, then a still worse 

 one happens in another, viz. to avoid the consequences here 

 set down, the angler has to employ some particular knack 

 or method of getting his line out, which inevitably gets him 

 into a bad style, and a false form of fishing, out of which he 

 will never after get as long as he lives. I cannot here give 

 any exact directions whereby such errors in choice may be 

 avoided, but if the angler will request his tackle maker to 

 choose him a line suitable to his rod, he will seldom go far 

 wrong. If this does not suit him, and he is unable to choose 

 well for himself, then he must risk the consequences. 



The running line, like the casting line should be carefully 

 tapered and should end in a neat loop.j If a knot be used 

 and a tie be resorted to to fix the casting line to it, this knot 

 will often, when taken apart, to save time be broken off, and 

 the line little by little is reduced in length until much of the 

 fine tapering is lost to it, and the thickness of the running line 



* The author here describes graphically a mishap with which both salmon 

 and trout anglers were painfully familiar fifty years ago. But the invention, 

 first of the bayonet fastening to replace the slip ferrule in trout rods, and nex 

 of adhesive tape for lapping the splices of salmon rods, has redeemed the 

 situation. ED. 



t This may prove harmless in fishing a wet fly down-stream; but m 

 casting up-stream, wet or dry, a loop is very objectionable. So long ago as 

 1857 W. C. Stewart wrote in The Practical Angler: "Loops make such a 

 show in the water that we never have one in any part of our line. 

 Experienced salmon and trout fishers almost invariably attach the cast to 

 the reel line by a figure of eight knot. ED. 



