$2 SALMON AND TROUT. 



any chance it happens to be hanging slightly loose below the 

 bottom ring, a position which I find it pretty constantly occu 

 pies in practice. To obviate this inconvenience I have my 

 reels fitted with a spring, clasped over the hindermost bar of 

 the reel in the manner shown in the diagram (fig. 4, p. 58). This 

 spring, c, is let into, and screwed down upon the base of the 

 foot plate at the point marked D. I can strongly recommend 

 this addition as a great practical convenience. It can, of course, 

 be applied to any ordinary form of reel already in use that 

 is, it is applicable to old as well as new reels. 



The reel and line having been selected, the next thing is 

 the mode of attaching it to the rod. 



For this purpose many plans, more or less ingenious, have 

 at different times been adopted. Some reels are or used to 

 be fitted with a circular clasp underneath, which, being tight- 

 ened by a screw, is expected to hold the reel in its place, and 

 with an old-fashioned shaped straight butt will in certain 

 cases fulfil the expectation. With butts such as are now the 

 fashion, however, sloping rapidly away from the handle, these 

 fastenings, which were at no time very popular, have naturally 

 become obsolete. Then there is another class of fastenings, such 

 as that shown in the engraving (fig. i), in which the reel fix- 

 ture is adjusted by a catch of some sort. These ' fastenings to 

 measure,' however, all possess the disadvantage of being inappli- 

 cable to any reels except those specially constructed to fit them. 

 The ordinary double banded reel fastening was better decidedly 

 than any of these, inasmuch as, unless the fault of the reel 

 was its being too big in the foot plate, they could, by means of 

 a strip of leather or paper underneath, be made at a pinch do 

 duty with a reel of any dimensions. 



I have no hesitation in saying, however, that all the above 

 descriptions of reel fastening are now put completely, and I 

 believe, permanently, ' out of Court ' by one of the cleverest in- 

 ventions of all those which were submitted to the jurors of the 

 late Fisheries Exhibition. This is a plan invented by Messrs. 



