PIKE-TACKLE. 19 



as they undoubtedly are for salmon-fishing. No doubt they 

 might both easily be made lighter than they are at present. 

 The weight is considerable ; a Malloch reel with a plate 4^- 

 inches in diameter weighing i Ib. 14 oz., and this where one of 

 the side plates is of ebonite. The 3|-inch plate reel (Mr. 

 Malloch 's) of the same make weighs i Ib. i-^oz. 



I am very much inclined, however, the next time 'I go 

 a-spinning' to give Slater's very clever and admirable 'com- 

 bination reel' (see p. 55, Vol. I.) a trial. It has all the merits 

 of an ordinary check reel (besides being much lighter) and in 

 addition it combines the advantages of the Nottingham reel, 

 by which under special circumstances, such as wading, spinning 

 from rough stubbly banks, and so forth, the necessity of coiling 

 up the line on the ground, &c., is avoided. This reel, four and 

 a half inches in diameter, with fifty yards of finest dressed-silk 

 running-line on it, only weighs ten ounces. On the whole 

 Slater's reel is the most original, and I am disposed to think, 

 from the spinner's point of view, also the most practically useful 

 of all the inventions in the way of reels to which the late 

 Fisheries Exhibition gave birth. 



One serious drawback, however, so far as my experience 

 goes and, so far as my experience goes, one only is common 

 to every reel hitherto made, viz., that the line is apt to get caught, 

 under the back part of the reel itself, thus causing a constant 

 irritating annoyance, and, in the case of the pike-fisher and 

 especially of the spinner a serious danger. In order to 

 obviate this I designed some years ago a small spring so 

 adjusted that when the reel is fixed to the rod, it the spring 

 presses closely on the butt or winch- fittings behind the reel. 

 The spring (see diagram p. 20, c,) can be attached with 

 perfect ease to any well-made reel at a nominal cost, and I 

 venture to think that no spinner who has once experienced the 

 practical convenience of this antidote to ' hitching ' will ever 

 use a reel without it. 



It remains to consider the reel used in what is known as the 

 Nottingham Style of fishing. This is a reel, without 'check' 



c 2 



