2 FISHING GOSSIP. 
ceeding to other branches of our subject. I broadly 
assert then, as I have elsewhere expressed it, that 
“the finer the tackle is, consistently with the re- 
quisite strength to hold the fish, the greater will be 
the chance of testing its powers.” Fine tackle is not 
necessarily weak tackle, neither is a straw band of a 
goodly size as strong as a small wire rope. Some of 
my readers will no doubt remember a most amusing 
account of an experimental fishing-match by my 
friend, Mr. Frank Buckland—“ Fine versus Coarse 
Tackle,” which appeared in the columns of The 
Field, I think last August—champion knights, Mr. 
Cholmondeley Pennell, fine gut paternoster, dressed 
silk line, and jack-rod: Mr. Frank Buckland, ordi- 
nary coarse tackle and hand-line ; “ Robinson Crusoe,” 
ditto. The results were, as our friends who find 
“ Jordan such a hard road to travel,” would say, “the 
tallest kind of caution ;”—the knight of the jack-rod 
and gut-line being triumphantly victorious, and 
beating both his antagonists, together with the united 
crews of two boats anchored near them, out of the 
lasts ! 
A little contest of a somewhat similar kind which 
I once watched the result of, amused me much at the 
time, and may be worth referring to here. During 
one of my hunting rambles in the East, I was, rifle in 
hand, forcing my way through a belt of tangled vines 
and underwood, on the banks of one of those large 
