HOOKS. 31 



or I might even say with almost a prejudice against " them new-fangled 

 notions," as my keeper expressed it, I confess practical trial has converted me 

 entirely to Mr. Pennell's system, and I shall never use any other in future. 



' Devon Minnow.' 



A few parting words before I close this subject. 



There have, it is well known, and as I have already 

 explained, been at various times attempts to introduce some 

 form of direct attachment between the trace and its steel 

 appendage, and many forms of eyed hooks have been invented 

 with that object : hooks with turn-up eyes, hooks with ' needle ' 

 eyes, hooks with ' straight ' eyes, hooks with 'crooked ' eyes — 

 aim midtis aliis ; but none of these have obtained any very 

 general or ready acceptance on the part of the fishing public. 

 Indeed I may say that all the patterns of eyed hooks I have 

 personally examined and tested are open to serious practical 

 objections of one sort or another — either in connection with 

 the make or position of the eye, or in regard to the mode of 

 knotting it on to the line — objections which doubtless explain 

 their partial or non-success. I trust, however, that their in- 

 ventors — pioneers, explorers, and discoverers in the new field, 

 to whose labours I more than any one else am indebted ' — 

 will not imagine that I desire for one moment to depreciate in 

 any way their excellent work ; still less to exalt my own small 

 efforts at their expense. Indeed, as I have before said, it is 

 want of space simply, and not want of courtesy, which pre- 

 cludes my attempting, within the limits at my disposal, to 

 pourtray and describe their several ingenious plans— the pro- 

 genitors, so to speak, of my own system— and especially the 

 turn-up eyed hook of my friend Mr. H. S. Hall,^ which is now 

 used by many first-rate fly-fishers, whose enthusiasm carries 

 them triumphantly over all obstacles, or what I regard as 



1 To Mr. R. B. Marston, of the Fishing Gazette, the columns of which 

 have for several years been frankly and freely opened to the discussion of this 

 all-in:portant angler's qucestio vexata, the thanks of the angling public, and 

 my own in particular, are also largely due. 



^ Mr. Hall's hooks are attached by the single slip-knot, as recommended foi 

 a salmon fly (see p. 12). 



