64 PRACTICAL FLY FISHING 



sary. After a day's fishing I strip all line from the 

 reel and leave reel and line on a chair and rewind it on 

 just before leaving for the stream. 



Between trips and during the winter the line should 

 be removed from the reel and either coiled in a large, 

 loose hank and thrown in a drawer or stored on a 

 large line dryer or grooved hoop made for storing a 

 line. Treated thus, one's line will be free from kinks 

 when he keeps his tryst with the fishes the following 

 spring. 



LEADERS 



PURPOSE AND EVOLUTION 



The leader is the delicate connecting line between 

 the necessarily coarse line used in fly fishing and the 

 dainty, feathered creations we use as lures. Its prin- 

 cipal use is to decrease the visibility of the line and to 

 avoid weight at the end of the cast. 



Early anglers used leaders of horse hair and the first 

 fly fishers of Kentucky used fine sewing silk. 



SILK WORM GUT 



Silk worm gut was first used for leaders in the middle 

 of the 1 8th century. This material is not the intestine 

 of the silk worm but the contents of the cocoon spin- 

 ning sacs which lie folded on either side of the worm's 

 alimentary tract. As soon as the worm is ready to spin 

 its cocoon the tip of this spinning material appears at 

 the worm's " mouth." At this stage the worm is taken 



