THE SALMON ANGLER'S OUTFIT 



take the line in his hands and haul steadily upon it, Mr T stood by 



with the rod ready for a rush on the part of the fish. It yields! Slowly, foot 

 by foot, the line is recovered, but the fish behaves strangely. So far from 

 making a rush, it hangs heavily, tugging vigorously as it slowly approached 

 the surface. The suspense becomes trying, for the next phase of the con- 

 test must be violent. At length the secret of this prolonged inertia comes 

 out. There is brought to the surface no salmon, but — a coil of barbed 

 wire ! The salmon in its flight had bolted through this obstacle lying on 

 the bottom of the sea, left the hooks fixed in it, and the coils unwinding 

 had caused the lifelike tugging on the line which deceived the fisherman. 



After the reel-line comes the casting-line, for which silkworm gut has 

 long been unchallenged as the best material. The challenge, however, has 

 come at last, and from a very formidable quarter; but of that presently. 



Silkworm gut has many virtues; at its best it is strong, durable and, 

 being translucent, not easily detected by the fish. Salmon-fishers gene- 

 rally buy casting-lines ready made up, the usual and best arrangement 

 consisting of a few lengths of treble -twisted gut to continue the taper 

 of the reel -line, the rest of the cast being of single gut. For early spring 

 fishing the entire cast may be of treble gut; machine -twisted being, in my 

 opinion, far preferable to hand -twisted, because in the machine -twisted 

 the different lengths are woven together without knots. Tackle -makers, 

 unless otherwise instructed, usually make up casts to measure nine feet 

 in length. For early fishing at least this is one -third too long; anything 

 beyond six feet merely increases the difficulty of casting in rough weather 

 and affords no compensating advantage. Even for summer fishing and 

 autumn fishing in fine weather I prefer not to fish with more than seven 

 feet of gut cast, which is quite enough to keep the reel line away from the 

 fish's line of sight. 



Despite its many virtues, silkworm gut has also its defects. So long 

 as water and weather allow of treble gut being used, nothing can be more 

 satisfactory in every respect. I think we generally abandon it too soon 

 and with too little reason. Probably thin gut treble twisted is not more 

 visible in the water than single gut stout enough to hold a salmon; it 

 is quite as strong and, if machine -twisted, is without knots, which are 

 always objectionable and are generally the weakest points in any trace. 

 But in accordance with an unwritten law, after the rough work in spring 

 is over, treble gut is reserved for that part of the cast which is nearest the 

 reel -line. 



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