79 SALMON AND TROUT. 
dressed, hemp, and forty yards of medium-sized swelled dressed 
silk taper, as thick as is suitable for casting with any rod up to 
fifteen or sixteen feet. The hemp backing is about as fine as. 
a fine trout reel-line, and I found one yard of it drew out the 
steelyard to ¢wenty-three pounds before it broke. This hemp. 
line will also last right well. The ‘back line’ and the tapered, 
or casting, part of the line should be very carefully and neatly 
lapped together with fine waxed silk at the place of junction, so- 
as to obviate any danger of the line getting stuck in the rings. 
at that point when running out with a fish. If small stiff steel 
rings (‘snake’ pattern best, see p. 80), such as I use myself 
and advocate for every description of rod,: are adopted, the 
chance of a ‘hitch’ at the critical moment will be reduced to- 
a minimum. . 
In the foregoing observations on reels generally I have 
assumed that all practical fishermen will use a reel which is- 
either normally a ‘check,’ or that can be made into a check at: 
pleasure. The old-fashioned ‘plain reel,’ as it is called, pos- 
sessed certainly the merit of being plain—very plain, indeed, 
we should think nowadays !—and simple, in the sense of not 
being likely to get out of order. But there its merits end. 
When there is no ‘check’ to interfere with the rapid rotatory 
motion of the wheel set going by a heavy fish, there is nothing: 
in the mechanism to prevent the line ‘ over-running,’ the result. 
of which is usually a complete stoppage at the critical moment. 
Multiplying reels are at least equally objectionable upon 
another ground, namely, that, when ‘winding in’ a fish, the 
old mechanical axiom of ‘what is gained in speed is lost in 
power’ is apt to come into operation with disastrous results. 
No one can fairly wind-in a heavy fish with a multiplying reel 
of the old type, and now that reels with deep narrow barrels, 
giving increased speed and power, are almost universally 
manufactured instead of the antiquated shallow, broad-grooved. 
pattern, there is no practical advantage gained by further 
rapidity of action. 
1 I cordially agree in the advantage of standing rings. —Ep, 
