76 BOTTOM FISHING. 



speedily by extracting the hooked fish from his 

 element. Matters take a sudden turn, however, the 

 fish running in to inspect some festooned retreat. 

 Here he speedily entwines the line in so effective a 

 manner that all communication with his newly found 

 acquaintance is cut off, and when matters stand thus, 

 the cutting process is generally applied to the reel 

 line as a closing act in the scene. To land an extra 

 heavy fish with a limber rod would be well nigh an 

 impossibility where the surroundings are unfavour- 

 able. The correct way to play a fish in a powerful 

 current, or still deep from the bank, is to extend 

 the rod over the water, whilst the line is drawn in as 

 rapidly as circumstances will admit ; and when a 

 staunch tool is the sustaining medium, the fish cannot 

 possibly, by anything short of a breakage, effect his 

 object. The weapons not infrequently used in bank 

 fishing are not only undesirably heavy and unwieldy, 

 but unnecessarily so. A rod that may be handled 

 deftly, may be used to much greater advantage than 

 one a few feet more in length. A twenty foot rod, 

 whether it be a salmon or merely a banking bottom 

 rod, is a cumbersome implement ; that, for precision 

 of casting and distance covering, as also for general 

 utility, is easily surpassed by a modest weapon of 

 1 6 to 1 8 feet in the hands of a proficient rodster. 

 Personally, we always use bottom rods full two feet 

 below the usual average length, no matter where we 

 may be fishing. 



The line is the next subject for consideration. 

 For bottom fishing generally, lines should invari- 



