REEL-LINES. 53 
and ascertain, by breaking or trying to break it, what is its 
actual strength. 
It appears, then, that on a computation of advantages and 
disadvantages our support should be given to dressed silk lines 
for fly-fishing ; and as these are made of every thickness, from 
that of an ordinary piece of stout sewing cotton almost to that 
of a bell rope, everyone can, without difficulty, suit his par- 
ticular objects and tastes. Dressed silk has in rough weather 
a ‘driving’ power which cannot be obtained with any undressed 
material, and nothing but silk appears to be capable of taking 
the dressing properly.! 
Then comes the question: Shall the dressed silk line be 
*level’—that is, of equal substance throughout—or ‘tapered,’ 
which means in ordinary parlance, getting finer towards the end 
at which the casting line isto be attached? The latter is some- 
times what is called ‘ double tapered,’ that is, the line is tapered 
at both ends—or it may be only a ‘single taper,’ when, of 
course, the taper is made at one end only. As between level 
and tapered lines, each has its advantages and its disadvantages, 
but, on the whole, I think nine fly-fishers out of ten prefer, in 
practice, a line more or less tapered towards the casting end. 
So far as the actual casting is concerned, apart from ‘fine 
fishing,’ these details are of little importance on quiet days, but 
in stormy weather, when the wind is blowing half a gale, perhaps 
tight in the fly-fisher’s teeth, the case is radically altered, and 
the man whose line is properly tapered and balanced and in 
weight exactly suited to his rod will be able to go on casting 
with comparative efficiency, while his neighbour, less perfectly 
equipped, will find his flies blown back in his face every other 
cast. 
The importance, to the salmon fisher especially, of a line 
1 The art of dressing a line, whether for trolling or fly-fishing, is in itself a 
speciality, and one which few amateurs will probably find it worth taking the 
trouble to practise for themselves, but in case they should desire to become 
their own line dressers, they are advised to try the receipt given by Major 
Traherne, in his article on fishing for salmon with the fly, as the result of his ex- 
perience on the best mode of dressing silk lines for fly-fishing. 
