142 NOTES ON FISH AND FISHING. 



Let your line taper at both ends, so that when you have 

 to some extent worn away one end you can reverse the 

 line on your winch and utilize the other. 



Notwithstanding the general consensus of condemnation 

 of multiplying winches, I am for multipliers. They are a 

 great comfort when you are fishing up stream, and espe- 

 cially when you fish heads down. I know they are apt to 

 get out of order, at least ordinary ones are, but some are 

 made now with extra wheels, and, though in one sense 

 more complex, so arranged that a " dead lock" is next to 

 impossible, as I have noted on page 109. 



None but the best gut, whether whole or drawn, 

 should ever be used for collars. I don't believe in stained 

 gut, unless the water is very discoloured. It must be 

 remembered that the fish are looking upwards, with the 

 light and the sky for a background. It would be quite 

 another matter if they were looking down into the water 

 on your collar. 



What shall I say of flies ? It is one of the most difficult 

 things in the world to say or write a little when there is 

 much which can be written or said. It would take a dozen 

 or twenty pages even briefly to mention the various views 

 which have been advanced. They range from tbe theories 

 that almost go as far as to maintain that a different fly is 

 required for every day in the year and almost for every hour 

 in every day, to the simple reduction of the number to 

 three, or at most half a dozen flies as all that are necessary 

 all the year round. Here again I think the old saying, 

 medio tutissimus ibis, is applicable. To load yourself 

 with swarms of flies tied up in huge bunches in your 

 fly-book is folly. There are scores of flies made which 

 might be utterly abolished. Still I do not think the ordi- 



