TAPERED LIXES. 151 



not support a heavy line, and the angler goes on thresh- 

 ing 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 weari- 

 ness, 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 care 

 fully tapered, and should end in a neat loop. 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 thick- 

 ness of the running line and the fineness of the cast make 

 a very unequal junction, so that the running line goes 

 before the casting line, and it requires a sharp switch or 



