52 How to select Hairs for Stinting. 



be sure there are no flaws, cracks, or bruises in any one 

 of them, and also that they are round. When you hook 

 a fish thus tackled, always use your landing-net, and do 

 not draw him on to the gravel bed if you can avoid it. 

 The writer has lost many a fish and stinting by so doing ; 

 for in thus landing a fish the hair, by some imperceptible 

 means, gets cut or damaged among the sharp stones and 

 gravel, and the next fish hooked most certainly takes 

 the fly clear away, and perhaps a large portion of stint- 

 ing besides ; at any rate, if you do draw your fish on to a 

 gravel bed, always carefully examine your stinting previous 

 to making another cast, for such precaution may frequently 

 save both stinting and fish. Chestnut hair is generally 

 the roundest and strongest, and is very good for a brown 

 or black water ; when of a pale colour it answers equally 

 well in clear waters. 



Cream-coloured hair, from Flemish horses, is found 

 mostly of excellent quality, round, strong, transparent^ 

 and of a good length. 



White hair is met with of all qualities. That taken 

 from a tail composed of black and white hairs is often 

 very transparent and strong, though, perhaps, not always 

 very round. The opaque whiteness which some hair 

 possesses renders it utterly useless for the Angler's pur- 

 pose. When white hair is strong and transparent but 

 flat, that shiny appearance which such hair generally has 

 may in some measure be removed by dyeing it, green 

 being the best colour for clear waters ; and then it is 

 rendered nearly as useful as the round. An old and very 

 excellent Fly-fisher used to say, when accused of angling 

 with flat but very strong hair, " Ah, but you see I always 

 contrive to throw it edgeways on, and then the fish can't 

 see it ! " 



