HOOKS. 5 



hook, is by no means new. Mr. H. S. Hall, whose charming 

 contributions to these pages will be read with interest by all 

 dry fly-fishers, was my immediate predecessor and pioneer on 

 the somewhat thorny, though by no means untrodden, track ; 

 and long before him, both during the present century and still 

 earlier, a perception of the advantages to be attained by a 

 system of attaching the hook direct to the line has been present 

 to the minds of several writers on angling and hook manu- 

 facturers, amongst whom Messrs. Warner, of Redditch, are 

 entitled to most honourable mention. But what I mean by 

 saying that the perfecting of the idea yet remained to be 

 accomplished is, that, however ingenious or admirable in them- 

 selves, these attempts and essays have failed in the one all- 

 important respect of actually solving the problem ; of solving 

 it, that is, by producing such a system of hook-eyes and 

 attachments as would obviate the various inherent difficulties 

 and objections, and bring the invention into general practical 

 use amongst anglers. 



Success — as I think it is now being perceived — depended, in 

 fact, quite as much on the perfect simplicity and strength of 

 the knot by which the attachment is to be made as on the 

 metal eye or loop itself. 



This 'loop' might, theoretically, be either turned upwards 

 or downwards, or ' needle-eyed ' — that is, drilled perpendicu- 

 larly through the end of the hook-shank like the eye of a 

 needle ; and in the first issue of these volumes each system 

 was fully discussed, with the arguments pro and con. At pre- 

 sent, however, it would appear— so far, at least, as the tackle 

 makers may be supposed to feel the pulse of the angling and 

 fly-fishing world— that the arguments adduced in the earlier 

 issues of this book, or other causes, have so far influenced pub- 

 lic opinion in the matter that — firstly — eyed hooks are rapidly 

 coming into more general use, primarily amongst trout-fishers ; 

 and — secondly — that only my own patterns of hooks with the eyes 

 turned down enjoy any considerable or increasing popularity. 

 I shall therefore, in the present revised edition, omit as far as 



