42 FISHING GOSSIP. 



ceeding to other branches of our subject. I broadly 

 assert then, as I have elsewhere expressed it, that 

 " the finer the tackle is, consistently with the re- 

 quisite strength to hold the fish, the greater will be 

 the chance of testing its powers." Fine tackle is not 

 necessarily weak tackle, neither is a straw band of a 

 goodly size as strong as a small wire rope. Some of 

 my readers will no doubt remember a most amusing 

 account of an experimental fishing-match by my 

 friend, Mr. Frank Buckland " Fine versus Coarse 

 Tackle," which appeared in the columns of The 

 Field, I think last August champion knights, Mr. 

 Cholmondeley Pennell, fine gut paternoster, dressed 

 silk line, and jack-rod : Mr. Frank Buckland, ordi- 

 nary coarse tackle and hand-line ; " Robinson Crusoe," 

 ditto. The results were, as our friends who find 

 " Jordan such a hard road to travel," would say, " the 

 tallest kind of caution ;" the knight of the jack-rod 

 and gut -line being triumphantly victorious, and 

 beating both his antagonists, together with tlie united 

 crews of two boats ancJwred near them, out of the 

 lists ! 



A little contest of a somewhat similar kind which 

 I once watched the result of, amused me much at the 

 time, and may be worth referring to here. During 

 one of my hunting rambles in the East, I was, rifle in 

 hand, forcing my way through a belt of tangled vines 

 and underwood, on the banks of one of those large 



