THE SALMON ANGLER'S OUTFIT 

 gut, and — I conquered. I thought I had found perfection at last, and 

 before starting for Norway in 1911 I bought some fresh coils of Talerana. 

 It betrayed me. Twice I was broken on the rise, the rupture taking 

 place at the figure-of-eight knot uniting a very small fly with a metal eye 

 to the cast. 



That was enough to shake anybody's faith, and I returned to single 

 gut. I had only the previous season's casts in my book, but they looked 

 perfectly fresh and strong. Twice before the end of that season I was 

 broken again, not on the rise, but in fair play with fish in swift streams. 



The next material I tried was Yarvon fibre, which behaved beautifully. 

 It is as strong, as cheap and as knotless as Talerana, and, so far, I have 

 had no accident with it. On one occasion, fishing the Helmsdale, I hooked 

 a bush on the far bank. Unable to free the hold, I had to take the line in 

 hand and pull off. It took a very strong pull — the Yarvon eventually part- 

 ing at the knot of the loop into which the reel -line was fastened. That 

 determined me in future either to have the loop on the reel -line, and 

 attached the Yarvon to it with a figure-of-eight, or to have the loop on the 

 Yarvon securely whipped and varnished. Now a casting-line of single gut 

 may cost anything from 4s. up to 15s. The loss of such a cast would be 

 considerable. In the case of Yarvon it was exactly 2Jd.! 



I was well pleased with the experiment. Yarvon showed advantage 

 over Talerana in that the end to which the fly has to be attached does not 

 fray out. But a few days later I received a damper in the shape of a letter 

 from a friend on Speyside who had lost a fish through Yarvon breaking at 

 a knot accidentally formed in casting. I instituted experiments imme- 

 diately with a steelyard upon Yarvon dry and Yarvon soaked, with the 

 startling result that it broke at a knot under the following strain: 

 Medium salmon, 5J lb. dry, 6 lb. soaked. 

 Strong salmon, 6 lb. dry, 8 lb. soaked. 



Obviously, this is not good enough. It is true that nobody can exert a 

 strain of 4 lb. upon the line with a 16 -ft. rod, but the sudden wrench of a 

 heavy fish in strong water may easily do so for a moment. Bar knots, 

 I consider Yarvon splendid material for casting -lines, and I intend to 

 continue using it till I come to grief; but a very sharp look-out will have 

 to be kept against knots in casting. 



In the matter of hooks the fisherman has the choice of a considerable 

 variety of bends or shapes, but the exact pattern is of far less im- 

 portance than the quality and temper of the metal. Many a good salmon 



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