ON RAPID STREAMS. 133 



hook, thereby not encroaching on the bend nor 

 preventing the hook burying itself deeply in the 

 trout's mouth when you strike ; moreover, the 

 shank being tapered off towards its extremity, 

 allows the beetles freely to run up the gut when 

 you strike, and come down on the hook again 

 afterwards to their proper place, without tearing 

 or breaking them. The best size for the hook is 

 that which would correspond to a No. 9 or 1 

 Adlington. This seems, at first sight, a monstrous 

 one, and very clumsy, and so it is ; and, moreover, 

 I may here tell you the whole style is clumsy ; it 

 is nevertheless terribly destructive. 



It is well to carry in your pocket a little silk on 

 which cobblers' wax has been rubbed, as the hard 

 cases of the beetles fret the silk so powerfully that 

 a few hours' fishing will make the warping of the 

 hook come undone, and you will perhaps go on 

 with an unsafe hook till you get hold of a good 

 large trout, when assuredly the gut will slip out 

 and your fish be lost. This has occurred to me 

 more than once. A good way of splicing on the 

 hook is to end towards the extremities of the 

 shank with eight or ten half-hitches, so that no 

 sudden undoing of the silk can occur; and at the 

 first warning of any of the hitches being loose or 

 undone, and the end of the silk projecting, you 

 should at once either resplice the same hook, or 

 put on another already spliced to a link of gut; 

 and this caution, trivial though it may appear, 

 should be remembered in all kinds of fishing with 

 natural baits. 



