Xll PREFACE. 



understand that without them I must have failed to appreciate and 

 make due provision for many little ensnaring but exasperating difficulties 

 that lie in wait for the learner. 



An adept's familiarity with an art may lead him to contemn, if not 

 overlook, many little matters that make it impossible to the uninitiated. 

 And as this fact was gradually brought to my mind, it opened a wide view 

 of the task before me and laid bare a long vista of minor particulars need- 

 ful to explain, if I would guide others of less experience than myself. 



I have, however, not been deterred by that view-, nor ceased to keep 

 to my first intention to produce an original manual, useful to refer to on 

 practical matters, which have not suitably, certainly not similarly, been 

 dealt with by previous writers. I may seem now and then over didactic, 

 but any veteran who may honour my text by reading it, will easily forgive 

 me, when remembering that I write also for the novice in Salmon-capture. 

 If, in wading through deep and undefined problems, I seem to be tediously 

 slow and unentertaining, it will be without any profession to avoid dry- 

 ness. I foreswear, for the purpose of these pages, all that may be 

 hurriedly gathered from the Catalogues of our leading " fishing-tackle " 

 makers. My programme embraces so much that is technical and 

 mechanical that I should rather endeavour to please by instructing, 

 than to instruct by pleasing. A Vade mecum as light in weight and writing 

 as may be, a " handbook " full of information, direct, reliable, condensed, 

 and strictly intent on business, is what I wish to offer to the public. 



Although it may not be considered satisfactory that such a course 

 should have been deemed necessary, I have ventured, with all due 

 deference, quietly to point out where our technical expressions and 

 piinciples have been misunderstood and misapplied. The gravity of the 

 position is thoroughly realised. But in such an undertaking there may 

 be very considerable advantages, and that seems to render the 

 responsibility unavoidable. In any case I am animated by one feeling, 

 and one feeling only ; and that is by a real and natural desire to explain 



