406 



Salmon -Fishing. 



having no time to waste upon flies. Last year, with scores of salmon, 

 by actual count, in the different pools, often not more than one in a 

 pool could be tempted to rise to our flies. All these combined causes 

 make the number of salmon-anglers small. 



A stream being secured, the selection of tackle is an easy matter. 

 A water-proofed American-made silk line of about three hundred 

 feet, tapering gradually at each end, so that it may, when worn, be 

 changed end for end, is the one generally used in this country. A 

 simple reel with click is the best, and it may be of hard rubber 

 or metal, as preferred. If of metal, it is usually nickel or silver 

 plated. In olden times, the Scotch salmon-angler strapped around 

 his waist a roughly made wooden reel of large size, called a 

 pirn. It was entirely unconnected with the rod, along which the 

 line was carried by rings, beginning quite a distance above the hand. 

 In the old Scotch works upon angling, we read of the gaffer singing 

 out to his laird, "Pirn in! pirn in! you'll be drooned and coot" 

 (drowned and cut), by which he meant, " Reel in, or your line will 

 bag and be cut off by getting around 

 the sharp edges of the rocks." 



The Scotch poaching angler sus- 

 pends by straps under his outer gar- 

 ments a capacious bag of coarse 

 linen for concealing his salmon, while 

 quite innocently he carries in his hand 

 a string of trout. Lord Scrope once 

 caught a poacher with a salmon in 

 his bag, and demanded how it got 

 there. The reply was, " How the 

 beast got there I dinna ken. He 

 must ha' louped intil ma pocket as I 

 war wading." 



The leader, of nine to twelve feet 

 nearest the hook, is of the best 

 selected silk-worm gut, which should stand a test of four or five 

 pounds strain. This gut is made by taking the silk-worm just 

 before it begins to spin its cocoon, and soaking it in vinegar some 

 hours. The secreting glands of the worm are at that time filled with 

 the mass of glutinous matter from which the silk of the coeoon is to 



