314 AMATEUR TACKLE MAKING, ETC. 



hook dressing. To attach gut or gimp to a hook 

 may appear a very simple operation at first 

 sight, but to firmly secure it, in a style eligible 

 for the best and most particular purposes, the novice 

 finds to be by no means so easy as it would first be 

 assumed to be ; indeed, many angling writers, up to 

 comparatively recent times, recommend a knot to 

 be tied at the end of the substance it is intended to 

 attach to the hook, " to aid," as they assert, " in 

 preventing a slip." Another practice in vogue, even 

 now, is to twist the gut or gimp around the shank of 

 the hook in the process of tying, to avert the same 

 catastrophe. That hooks often do slip when the 

 moment of trial arrives no one can attempt to 

 confute ; but that they can be securely dressed, 

 without knot or similar artifice, is known by the 

 major portion of accomplished fishermen. All that 

 is really needed to ensure security and solidity in 

 whipping on a hook is to hold both silk and hook 

 firm, and to extend a strain to the tying silk as great 

 as it is capable of bearing ; this done evenly and well, 

 it will be found (providing the tying silk is not 

 tender), inseparably secure. To tie on a hook, 

 three whisks or wraps may be given on the bare 

 shank, then the substance it is desired to connect 

 may be placed alongside, when the wrapping silk 

 may be carefully wound around, the utmost tension (as 

 we have said) being extended to the tying silk, which 

 should be bedded closely and evenly, until almost 

 opposite the barb, when it may be knotted off by 

 means of the ordinary invisible knot or slip noose. 



