PIKE-TACKLE. 23 



sightly and obviates any possible liability to breakage at that 

 point. 



Passing from the reel, the next subject demanding attention 

 is the reel-line. Since the times when Dr. Badham assures us 

 that trolling-lines were spun from the byssus by which mussels 

 anchored themselves to our rocks and ships' bottoms, an endless 

 difference of opinion has prevailed as to the lines suitable for 

 pike-fishing generally, and for spinning especially, as well as 

 to the dressings necessary to give them the exact degree of 

 ' waterproofness,' and of stiffness or rigidity, which are the two 

 essentials in any spinning-line fit for use. Without these 

 conditions the lines will either not run out at all, or will do so 

 in a succession of knots or 'kinkings' destructive of any enjoy- 

 ment of the sport. 



Every kind of material has, as I say, been at one time or 

 other recommended, from sheep's and catgut to ' silver and silk 

 twisted.' These prescriptions, however, it must be admitted, 

 belonged to the earliest historic (or shall I say pre-historic ?) 

 times of the literature of angling. Even amongst our modern 

 authorities, however, great divergencies are observable. There 

 are the advocates of oil dressing, and the advocates of india- 

 rubber dressing the patrons of silk lines and those who hold 

 to the hemp-spun fabrications of the Manchester Cotton Twine 

 Spinning Corporation, whilst another recent contributor to 

 fishing literature goes out of his way to ' back a hair line 

 against them all at a venture.' A receipt which does not seem 

 likely to prove very successful, as it is within the experience of 

 most spinners that, even with the addition of a goodly propor- 

 tion of silk, twenty yards of ordinary ' fly line ' cannot be in- 

 duced by any amount of persuasion to run out through the 

 rings of a jack rod. 



In the 'Book of the Pike' 1 I wrote nearly 20 years ago 

 ' Some discussion has recently taken place as to the merits of 

 catechu, indiarubber, and other waterproof dressings, especially 



1 3rd Edit. Routledge and Co., Broadway, Ludgate Hill. 



