SELECTION, CARE, AND RIGGING 



chamois. All leaders should be aired and dried 

 thoroughly before putting them away. After 

 constant soaking in a soak-box during a fishing 

 trip of some days the quality begins to de- 

 teriorate. (Some anglers utilize the top of their 

 wool socks, which are drawn over the waders 

 to prevent their chafing in the wading-shoe, for 

 a soak-box.) In the dry state silkworm-gut is 

 brittle, and it must be understood that before 

 tying any knots in this material it must be made 

 perfectly pliable by thorough soaking in water. 

 Warm (don't use hot) water softens it quicker, 

 and a teaspoonful of glycerine to the pint may 

 be added, though not essential. 



About the longest strands of natural gut that 

 can be bought are eighteen to twenty inches, 

 and the cost mounts up very rapidly with the 

 increase in length. The advantage of long 

 lengths is fewer knots in your leader, hence 

 "lower visibility." 1 Recently there have come 

 into the market gut substitutes in the form of 

 knotless leaders. The best of these to be had 

 in America is the product handled here by Joe 

 Welsh of Pasadena, Cal. (In New York they 

 are now stocked by the Abercrombie and Fitch 

 Company.) It is the original "Telerana Nova" 

 leader introduced by William Robertson of 



1 See a series of three most interesting articles, begun in the November, 

 1917, Forest and Stream, by Edwin T. Whiffen, on cultivating your own 

 silkworm-gut at home, from an American silkworm, the large green cater 

 pillar of the common rusty brown (Cecropia) moth. Knotless leaders from 

 six to nine feet long are thus obtainable. 



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