TACKLE AND FISHING GEAR. 47 



Anglers should always, when going- away fishing, provide them- 

 selves with a small bottle of Stephens' blue black ink. You can 

 easily get any tint you like, from a pale blue to almost black, by 

 soaking the gut in this ink for a few minutes, or for several, 

 according to the depth of stain you want. Rinse the gut in clean 

 water when you take it out of the ink, and then there is no fear 

 that the strength of the gut will be affected, as is most certainly the 

 case with many of the dyes used. 



A gentleman I once met at Loch Leven told me that he 

 had a friend, a first-rate fisherman, who never used to stain 

 gut ; but effectually took off the glitter by simply drawing it 

 once through a piece of fine emery paper. 



For dressing flies, where gut is used in the bodies, Judson's 

 aniline dyes, kept by most chemists, will produce any sort of 

 stain required. The directions are given on the bottles, but I 

 recommend the use of only one-half the proportion of water. 

 Some of the stains produced by the aniline dyes, however, 

 destroy the texture of the gut. 



Hair, which I cannot recommend for any sort of fly fishing, 

 and which when used should be taken from the tail of a stallion, 

 is seldom stained, being generally preferred of the natural 

 brownish tint. If, however, it is required to stain it for the 

 purpose of fly tying or otherwise, the animal greasiness must 

 be first removed by slightly boiling the hair in a 'mordant' 

 obtained from an ounce of alum dissolved in a pint of water. 

 This is also a good preparatory mordant for feathers before 

 they are dyed. 



Passing from the gut to the reel, or running line, I find so 

 wide a field open before me that I despair of being able to do 

 justice to the numberless different descriptions of lines, dressed 

 and undressed, silk, hemp, hair, and what not, which compete 

 for the fly fisher's favour. 



When I served my apprenticeship to the craft almost every- 

 body used a line composed of a mixture of silk and hair, and 

 this has still some votaries left, amongst whom, however, I am 



