64 FISHING TACKLE 



mon sizes average nine or ten inches in length, 

 while the bass sizes are twelve to fourteen inches 

 long, and the trout sizes up to eighteen or 

 twenty inches. With every strand there is con- 

 siderable waste. They are put up 100 in a 

 hank, and are generally sold by the trade in 

 this shape, though retailers sometimes put them 

 up in lots of twenty-five, so that anglers who 

 make their own leaders can obtain an assort- 

 ment of three or four sizes enough to make 

 several tapered leaders without purchasing 

 several hanks of 100 strands each. 



In recent years the demand for bleached 

 and stained gut has decreased steadily. Per- 

 haps gut was at first bleached because in that 

 shape it shows to better advantage than the 

 natural article. The staining was for the pur- 

 pose of rendering it less conspicuous in the 

 water, but experience has proved that neutral 

 colors are not of so much importance as they 

 were at one time popularly believed to be; 

 witness the various lines, in which white and 

 black and showy colors are all successfully used 

 in taking fish. 



Bleaching injures the gut. Staining does or 

 does not; it depends on the agent employed. 

 Soaking in cold tea, rubbing with dock leaves, 

 and a number of other harmless things have 



