DOUBTS AND DIFFICULTIES. 53 



or have been broken by the only two pounder 

 they ever hooked owing to the fineness of their 

 3 x point. 



You will find yourself inclined to hold a 

 brief for either side of this important contro- 

 versy exactly as your recent experience of 

 success or disaster prompts you to speak. And 

 your shifting views will generally be warmly 

 opposed by a counsel in waders on every 

 occasion. Upon the principle that whether you 

 marry or whether you don't you are sure to 

 regret it, so the dogmatic man, who makes an 

 iron rule with respect to drawn or undrawn 

 gut, is bound to have opposing evidence thrust 

 upon him in the form of disappointing blank 

 days, or of exasperating smashings. 



Take the case of undrawn namely natural gut 

 first. No one will deny that, however well 

 soaked it may be, it will not and cannot drop 

 a small fly upon the water with anything like 

 softness. Nor will it as a rule allow the fly to 

 ride upon the surface with the natural ease so 

 often necessary to deceive fish in a clear water. 

 The obvious result is that when small flies of 

 any particular pattern are proving successful, 

 the men who use undrawn gut are hardly able 

 to move a fish, while their fellow anglers have 

 basketed two or three brace. 



But now change the conditions to days when 

 a mayfly, an alder, a Welshman's button, or a 

 sedge, are the flies to put up; when the fish run 

 larger and the water is weedy. What is the 

 result? The undrawn gut not only stands the 



