FLY-FISHING. 493 



Fig. 2 represents a trimmer already set. This is used in still water 

 for Pike : a round piece of wood, white cedar or white wood or cork, 

 painted red or some showy color, about four inches diameter, with a 

 stick stuck in the centre to hold the line fast when set. In this round 

 wood there is a groove cut, represented at a, in which the line is 

 wound when set all but a yard or two. This line is fastened in a nick 

 at the top of stick b ; the bait of course is below it when set, and the 

 stick above water. When a fish takes the bait the trimmer turns over, 

 releases the line from stick 5, and pays out from groove a. You must 

 look sharply for your trimmer in and about the weeds, to which Pike, 

 for which they are especially intended, always make to bolt their prey. 

 They are very effective. 



I have not said a word as yet about floats ; they are but seldom 

 used nowadays ; but some people like them who are too lazy to feel 

 their lines all the time. They are usually made of cork, rounded at 

 the top, and tapering to the bottom with a quill-top fitted into a stick 

 run through them over the quill ; a small piece of quill is fixed to 

 hold the line, while to the bottom of the wood a wire loop is tied 

 also to pass the line through. The affair is then painted and var- 

 nished. 



A swiyel is a piece of twisted iron wire, or rather two pieces, con 

 nected together by a fine round small piece of iron fitted into the two 

 holes. Its heads are then hammered out. to prevent its slipping out 

 of the holes, but allowing it to work round and round freely, (vide 

 Fig. 3). A good substitute when hard set, is a common watch-key 

 filed off close below the large circle. 



Now, I believe I have done ; all but a few words in extenuation of 

 having presumed to write so far. Whether there is any thing new in 

 the foregoing remarks, I cannot say. Whether the subject has been 

 handled well or ill, it becomes not me to say, unless I may so far pre- 

 sume as to regret its great deficiencies. Man and boy, for twenty-five 

 years have I been fishing, during which time I have had to contend 

 against many adverse circumstances, and have been obliged to put my 

 wits to work no small number of times, either to form some device 

 or other or to repair some casualty. Under these disadvantages, I 

 have had to* learn how each and everything connected with the art 

 was made, and oft had to put that knowledge to a practical test. 

 The labor, time, trouble and annoyance that these delays occasioned 



