66 THE SCIENTIFIC ANGLEK. 



ever, the fish running in to inspect some festooned re- 

 treat. Here he speedily entwines the line in so effective 

 a manner that all communication with his newly found 

 acquaintance is cut off, and when matters stand thus, the 

 cutting process is generally applied to the reel line as a 

 closing act in the scene. * To land an extra heavy fish 

 with a limber rod would be well nigh an impossibility 

 where the surroundings are unfavorable. The correct 

 way to play a fish from the bank, in a powerful current, 

 or still deep, is to extend the rod over the water, whilst 

 the line is drawn in as rapidly as circumstances will ad- 

 mit; and when a staunch tool is the sustaining medium, 

 the fish cannot possibly, by anything short of a breakage, 

 effect his object. The weapons not infrequently used in 

 bank fishing are not only undesirably heavy and unwieldy, 

 but unnecessarily so. A rod that may be handled deftly, 

 may be used to much greater advantage than one a few 

 feet more in length. A twenty-foot rod,f whether it be 

 a salmon or merely a banking bottom rod, is a cumber- 

 some implement; that, for precision of casting and dis- 

 tance covering, as also for general utility, is easily sur- 

 passed by a modest weapon of sixteen to eighteen feet in 

 the hands of a proficient rodster. Personally, we always 

 use bottom rods full two feet below the usual average 

 length, no matter where we may be fishing. 



The line is the next subject for consideration. For 

 bottom fishing generally, lines should invariably be as 

 fine, and at the same time as strong, as it is possible to 



* The multiplying reel, so useful in the recovery of the line on an in- 

 coming fish, is not esteemed by English anglers. While admitting its 

 usefulness in that respect, they claim that it speedily gets out of order, 

 the cogs wearing out quickly. It is evident that the almost perfect 

 American makes have not been handled by our brother angler? over the 

 sea. The new " automatic '' reel also has not been introduced to them. 



t On the Lea, a river in England, rods of twenty-three feet are used by 

 bank fishermen. 



