Tackh makers should foUato 



the letterpress as to size. 

 The hoot is No. 1 Limerick. 



FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 for preference in an eastern wax-drying clime. Attach no shot as sinkers 

 between the hook and float, as that would falsify your plumbing and 

 destroy the set of the float. And yet a sinker of some sort is necessary 

 to take the bait as quickly as may be to the bottom, for if it is slow in 

 sinking it will be knocked to pieces in passage by numerous unworthy 

 small fish, and never reach the big labeo at the bottom, or reach them 

 spoilt as a bait. Take a few turns of soft lead wire round the shank of the 

 hook well away from the barb, and cover the whole with a ball of dough 

 made of wheaten flour as for roach. There is no better bait. Use no cotton 

 to keep it in place, and never mind if the fish steal it again and again, as 

 it will serve as ground bait to bring other fish about you, and the biggest 

 will see for themselves that they get the first look in. 

 For fioat the finest roach float will not serve you. A porcupine quill is 



all too coarse an implement. Take 

 rather my "Detective," and follow 

 the instructions for miaking it, not 

 casually, but exactly. Take a long 

 tail-feather of a peacock. It is oval. 

 Measure across the broadest part of 

 the oval, and cut off and throw away 

 all the part nearest the bird that is 

 more than one -eighth of an inch in 

 thickness. Gut the rest into six-inch 

 lengths till the stem gets to less than 

 one-eighth of an inch in thickness, 

 when it runs too thin and frail to 

 stand much use. Remove the harl, 

 not by stripping, as it tears off the 

 shiny waterproof skin which saves 

 the float from getting sodden, but by 

 neatly snipping. To the thinner end 

 whip a loop of thick salmon running 

 line, projecting a quarter of an inch, 

 and dip the loop in varnish to stiffen 

 it. The loop is for attaching your running line to it. At the other end the 

 surface of the very end is left white to attract the eye, round it, for half an 

 inch downward, paint a band of vermilion in oil colour, then leave a half- 

 inch band the natural white, and so alternate the red and white till you 

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