270 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



will speak of but you should, seeing I have so extolled my 

 river to you : nay, I will keep you here a month., but you 

 shall have one good day of sport before you go. 



YIAT. You will find me, I doubt, too tractable that way; 

 for in good earnest, if business would give me leave, and that 

 it were fit, I could find in my heart to stay with you for ever. 



Pise. I thank you, sir, for that kind expression ; and now 

 let me look out my things to make this fly. 



[REMAKES ON GUT, CASTING-LINES j ON THR OWING- THE LINE AND 



FLIES ; WORKING OB " HUMOURING-" THE LATTER ON THE WATER j 

 ON HOOKING-, PLAYING, AND LANDING A TROUT. Silk-worm gut is now 



used by all fly-fishers. It can be bought cheaply of all qualities- 

 roundness, strength, lengths of link, thickness, and fineness. The best 

 comes from Spain : and the fresher, brighter, and rounder it is the better. 

 It cannot be too thick or round for salmon-fishing, or too fine for trout 

 and grayling-fishing in a clear-stream. I do not think it absolutely 

 necessary to stain gut, but if you choose to do so, immerse it in coils in a 

 saucer of heated good writing ink for four or five minutes, and then wash 

 it in cold spring water. The colour communicated to the gut will be a 

 pale bluish green. In making the gut, casting-line, or " collar," as in 

 certain localities it is termed, the finest links should be at the end of the 

 line that first touches the water, and then should gradually increase in 

 thickness up to the loop by means of which the collar is fastened to the 

 loop of the winch -line. The extreme end of the winch-line, and the 

 u.pper end of the casting-line should be equal in thickness, and to render 

 them so, a couple of feet of fine platted gut may be added to the thicker 

 end of the casting-line. The links of which the latter is formed are 

 knotted together fine end to thick end and the knots are frequently 

 rendered more secure by being whipped neatly with waxed silk. If the 

 links are well knotted, they will require no whipping. It is above these 

 knots that the drop-flies, or "bobs," are attached; the tail-fly, or 

 " stretcher," is looped to the fine end of the casting-line, whose length 

 need never exceed two and a half yards, and on which it is rarely advisable 

 to place more than three flies, a stretcher, and two drop-flies. The 

 stretcher should be the largest and best fly ; the first drop, a bob, the 

 next best ; and the drop-fly above that the smallest and least attractive. 

 The distance between the stretcher and first bob should be two feet, and 

 between the first and last bob eighteen or twenty inches. Your casting- 

 line is now complete. 



At the outset at the first lesson of throwing the line begin with 

 about four or five yards of the winch-line, not putting on the gut casting- 

 line until you can throw tolerably well a few yards of the winch-line. 

 When you can do so, attach a gut collar of two yards, without any fly 

 attached ; and after you have learnt to throw that straightly eight or ten 

 yards, you may attach your stretcher and one bob and commence 

 angling. In " A Handbook of Angling," I have written on throwing 



