466 PRACTICAL LESSONS IN THE GENTLE CRAFT. 



of wear and tear, and losses of good fish, from the silk 

 breaking exactly at the spot where the bullet worked upon 

 it. Such experience caused me long ago to alter my 

 tactics, and, if the gimp is selected fine enough and it 

 can be got nearly as fine as stout gut and it is used with 

 a yard of gut below it, it will not operate against the 

 angler's success if the fish are feeding at all. If they don't 

 feed, nothing on earth will make them. Hooks for leger- 

 ing, at any rate for lob-worm fishing, should be long in the 

 shank, stout in the wire, and not too broad at the bend ; they 

 are sold at all respectable tackle shops now, with a small 

 silk loop whipped on the shank in lieu of the usual length of 

 gut, and are far preferable, doing away with the chance of the 

 hook link being weaker than the gut bottom and, again, 

 a quantity can be carried without the chance of getting the 

 gut links tangled and warped, a state of things frequently 

 happening no matter how careful a man may be. 



Perhaps the best hook in use at present amongst barbel- 

 fishers is one made by Messrs. Allcock of Redditch, an 

 eminent manufacturing firm, and called "The Wheeldon 

 Barbel Hook." It is a white Carlisle and has a small wire 

 loop at the top of the shank, on which it is only necessary 

 to loop the gut bottom. 



Although my paper is entitled " On Modern Fishing other 

 than Trout and Salmon," I can hardly, in dealing with the 

 Thames, leave the question of trout-spinning entirely out, 

 because it is a question so strongly applicable to the 

 Thames, and to no other river ; therefore, I feel I must say 

 half-a-dozen words even at the risk of tiring you. I think 

 we ought, as English anglers, to feel very proud of our 

 great home river, and of the quantity and calibre of the 

 fish which inhabit it. I doubt very much if our friends 

 from America or New Zealand, or any other place you like 



