24 FISHING GOSSIP. 



must be to everyone, that a rod and tackle equal to 

 contend with a fish of 8 or 10 Ibs. weight, taken by 

 a fly, would be competent to master the same fish 

 caught by a loach. There was no casting in the case, 

 the whole process being conducted in a boat, so that 

 no advantages were to be gained by additional length 

 or strength of the rod. The foot-line, however, was 

 entirely different from that employed in angling with 

 flies, except in the fact of its being made of gut. If 

 of single gut, as was sometimes the case, the gut 

 should be of the very best and strongest of that kind 

 sold as salmon-gut. On the other hand, if this ma- 

 terial was not procurable, the gut-twister was called 

 into operation ; three fine, long, and evenly matched 

 hairs were twisted together in lengths, and these 

 united as follows : Four or five such lengths usu- 

 ally went to make a foot-line of 4 or 5 feet long. Fine 

 double swivels were placed at each end and in the 

 centre. These were attached to the gut-links by the 

 latter being simply drawn through the eyes of the 

 former, the points of the protruded link being thinned 

 a little with the knife, turned down on the main link, 

 and then carefully lapped with silk rubbed well with 

 shoemaker's wax ; the union of the other ends of the 

 lengths or links of gut was by a single water-knot, 

 the waste ends of the gut being trimmed and neatly 

 tied down as in the case of the swivels. The double 

 water-knot on twisted gut makes clumsy work, and 



