47G HOOKS. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

 CONCLUSION. 



OK HOOKS THB BAIT TABLE HKCIPK3 AXD XOTABILU. 



ON HOOKS. 



PERHAPS there is DO point of greater importance, or to 

 which the great majority of anglers pay less attention, 

 than that of hooks. Yet everything depends upon having 

 a hook that will take a good hold and keep it. No matter 

 if you possess the most perfect skill, if your tackle be as 

 fine and sound as can be manufactured, yet if your hook 

 be not thoroughly trustworthy, all the rest is set at nought. 

 There is no economy so miserable, so shortsighted, and so 

 expensive in the long run, as that indulged in by buying 

 cheap hooks. A hook may be bad from various causes. 

 It may be badly tempered, being hardened either too 

 much or too little. In the first case, the point will cer- 

 tainly break in the strike when it touches a bone, and 

 you will lose your fish ; and lucky are you if that be the 

 only fish you lose. Usually the angler from carelessness 

 loses, misses, or scratches two or three other fish before the 

 fact dawns upon him that there may be something amiss 

 with the hook ; and when he examines it, he finds that the 

 fine delicate extreme point is gone, and a rough, scratching^ 

 blunt point, that cannot be made to take a hold anyhow, 

 remains. Even with the best of hooks this accident will 

 sometimes happen, should the point strike on a hard solid 



