26 SALMON AND TROUT. 
size of the fly and fineness of the gut. The finer the gut the 
longer should be the end left over. 
JAM KNOT COMPLETE. 
There is no advantage with the jam knot in cutting off the 
gut too close, as the free gut-end which should be left over 
mingles naturally with the hackles of the fly. After cutting off 
the waste gut it is convenient to #7 the free end down with 
the thumb nail in the direction of the hook-bend. This may 
be repeated whenever the flies are examined, which, of course— 
as with ordinary gut-flies—they should be at intervals, to see 
that the gut has not frayed at all at the head, and also that the 
free end has not by any accident been drawn in or shortened 
to the ‘unsafe’ point. 
During the last few years, including the present season, 
1889, I have caught, I should say, at least a thousand white 
and brown trout, weighing from a few ounces up to three or 
four lbs., in both stream and loch, with flies dressed on the 
turn-down eyed hook, and attached by the jam knot—some- 
times on traces fine even to the fineness of ‘ Bullmer’s gossa- 
mer gut’—and I cannot call to mind a single instance in 
which the knot has been proved to have failed. Moreover (a 
hint to the novice) flies thus attached very rarely fick off: 
With small flies the simplest way, when the gut becomes 
frayed at the head by wear and tear, is to cut or break the fly 
little invention, which I registered a year or two ago under the name of the 
‘Combined Gut-cutters and Tweezers,’ I have found much practical comfort, 
and, indeed, seldom start on a fishing expedition of any sort without first sus- 
pending a pair from my button-hole—a position in which they are most readily 
available, and least likely to disappear when wanted. In the use of eyed 
hooks especially—one of the charms of which is the facility offered for rapidly 
changing hooks or flies when needfl—I have found them almost indispens- 
able. They are obtainable at all tackle shops. 
