Black Bass Fishing. 



383 



NEAR THE RIVER. 



and put together a willowy and well-made split bamboo fly-rod, 

 eleven feet long, and weighing just eight ounces. Adjusting a light, 

 German-silver click reel, holding thirty yards of waterproofed and 

 polished fly-line of braided silk, to the reel-seat at the extreme butt 

 of the rod, he rove the line through the guide-rings, and made fast 

 to it a silkworm-gut leader six feet in length, to the end of which he 

 looped, for a stretcher or tail fly, what is known, technically, as the 

 " polka," with scarlet body, red hackle, brown and white tail, and 

 wings of the spotted feathers of the guinea-fowl ; three feet above 

 this, he looped on for dropper or bob fly, a " Lord Baltimore," with 

 orange body, black wings, hackle and tail, and upper wings of 

 jungle-cock, both very killing flies, and a cast admirably suited to 

 the state of the water and atmosphere. 



Meanwhile, Ignatius, who was a bait-fisher, jointed up an ash and 

 lance-wood rod of the same weight as the Professor's, but only eight 

 and a quarter feet in length, and withal somewhat stiffer and more 

 springy. He then affixed a fine multiplying reel, holding fifty yards 

 of the smallest braided silk line, to which, after reeving through the 

 rod-guides, he attached a sproat hook, No. 1 l /t, with a gut snell eight 

 inches long, but without swivel or sinker, for he intended fishing the 

 "riffles," which is surface fishing principally. 



Slinging their creels and landing-nets, they were about to depart, 

 when Luke spoke up : 



