RE REELS A NEW IDEA. 289 



the part of some habitual salmon fishers ; many 

 eschew the sport solely on the grounds indicated. 

 Veteran fishermen, too, find their physical organism 

 fail before the perceptible decline of the mental, 

 and it is with grievous regrets the old favourite 

 rod is laid aside for the last time. Many, very 

 many, are the instances we have known of the 

 time honoured heroes of many fishy fights, anglers 

 sterling and true, whose piscatory pleasures have 

 been abruptly closed by the stern mandate of 

 declining strength and feeble health. When man 

 is touched by the first frosts of the approaching 

 wintery period, and his habitual physical powers 

 are felt to be on the wane, how tenaciously and 

 persistently for a time does he cling to his cus- 

 tomary pursuits ; but, alas ! his determination is 

 short-lived nature is not to be overruled. Who 

 can describe, or, in fact, conceive the reflections of 

 such an one? None, surely none, but they who 

 have experienced them can truly sympathise. 



Expedients, practical in their bearings, might be 

 suggested, by way of neutralising, at least for a 

 season, these effects. The only feasible plan that 

 would appear to commend itself is to tone down 

 somewhat the heavy tools employed ; first, the winch, 

 weighty and cumbersome, may be reduced much 

 more than a third in substance of metal by con- 

 structing it from a skeleton design. We have made 

 and used large and small reels constructed on this 

 principle for some time, and find it a genuine 

 improvement to have the solid plates of the winch 



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