288 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April q, i8g8. 
thing of four or five joints. Have none of it. There is 
another sort of rod to be avoided, and that is the "gen- 
eral rod;" it can by many combinations be made into 
a fly rod, a trolling rod, a deep-sea rod, and a striped 
bass rod for casting a bait far into the surf. It is as 
useless for any of these purposes as a saw-log would be. 
T own one, presented as a prize in a poultry show some 
twenty-five years ago by a Boston firm, and I put it to- 
gether every year, admire its ingeniously contrived use- 
iessness, and return it to its case. 
Lines. 
It" is vi'tally imf»ortant to a fly-caster that his line 
should fit his rod. A rod with a given "backbone," or 
stiffness, will cast a line of a certain weight to the best 
advantage and with the greatest ease to the caster. No 
rule can be laid down for this, because the backbone 
of the rod is an unknown quantity. The best way is to 
go to a reliable tackle dealer who is himself a fly-fisher, 
and have him advise you what weight of line to use. In 
waterproof silk lines the weights are expressed in let- 
ters from A to G, the latter being the heaviest. These 
lines come in lengths of 25 to 50yds., both tapered and 
untapered. I prefer a tapered line; it is so braided, 
never twisted, that the last 20 or 30ft. on each end gradu- 
ally tapers to almost the thickness of the leader, and 
this gives greater weight beyond that distance; and this 
is of advantage in long casts. If it is not possible to 
find a fly -casting tackle dealer near you, write to any 
advertiser in Forest and Stream and tell him what kind 
of a rod you have, and ask his advice about a line to suit 
it. These men are the leading dealers in America, and 
know their business. 
Better a line a trifle too heavy than too light for a rod. 
A limber rod will cast a heav}'- line better than a reversed 
combination. A man with a tolerably .stiff rod, .such 
as I like, who has a line only a little too light for it, is 
trotibled to get his flies out, and tires his arm with the 
effort. 
There are silk lines which have a copper wire_ in them, 
but never having used one, nor even seen one in Amer- 
ica, I cannot imagine what the wire is for. In boy- 
hood's days horsehair lines were used and I have braid- 
ed them by keeping three crow quills filled with hair 
from the tails of horses, taking care that the ends in the 
quills were replaced by other hairs; but that kind of 
line will not suit the fly-fisher of to-day, and I was only 
a hand-liner then. The fly-fisher must have a line which 
will not add to its weight by absorbing water, hence 
waterproof silk is best, but never put such a line in salt 
water, or it will be ruined. Do not use any kind of a 
cotton line for fly-casting, for they will kink, and may 
smash a tip by a sudden check in the rings. Linen lines 
may be waterproofed by several formulas, which I have, 
but can't give them in detail now. 
The essential points in a line for fly-fishing are: Flex- 
ibility, incapacity to absorb w-ater, and so increase 
weight, and the absence of all tendency to kink. If you 
will imagine yourself with a fighting trout 40ft. away, 
and with a tw'isted kink which will not go through the 
loop at the tip of your rod, you will clearly understand 
why a limber, kinky line is to be avoided if you wish to 
avoid oratorical efforts when not speaking in public. 
Tf your purse will stand it, buy only a braided silk, ta- 
pered, waterproof line; they corne high, but they last 
long. I have three of different weights which have been 
in use for from twelve to fifteen years, and seem as good 
as CA-er. I test them each year, and from one there is 
gone about 5ft. from each tapered end, mainly in knots 
cut from leaders, but in two instances a break in a weak- 
spot. These lines cost from $2 to $5, but they were 
worth it. A lot of inferior lines would have cost more 
during the same time, and might have failed me in an 
emergency. 
What do we fish for? Not for fish, because we can go 
to market and buy them for much less than it costs to 
go to the trout streams. Of course I refer only to the 
man of business who is "chained down" for eleven 
months in the year, and continually sings, with Dr. 
Bethune: 
"Oh, that the willow's leaf were free, 
.-\nd the dogwood were in flower." 
Like Silns Wegg, I can't help "dropping into poetry" 
at times, for the angler is a lover of nature, and all na- 
ture is poetry. Just now the trouting season is near, 
find then the angler's blood is stirred as he sees: - 
''Daffodils, 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty." 
Lines on fish, or on fishing seasons, seem to have 
been crossed or have been brought so near that induc- 
tion resulted in the above conglomeration of lines cast 
in pleasant places. Let us get back to business and 
consider; 
Speaking as a zoologist, I would say that there 
were: Genera, II.; species, innumerable. The two 
genera differ radically, while the species vary only in 
detail. 
Here is an artificial key to the genus Reel; 
(a) Winch of wood or metal with cr^nk. 
(by Winch, as above, with click. 
(aa) Automatic mg.chine which pulls in a fish when 
the "little finger" presses the button. 
Then there are naultiplying reels with a combination 
of click and drag, to be used as desired. A click is a 
check, or drag, and is, not to be used where baits are to 
be cast with a free-running reel. L-dearly love a click 
reel for trouting; its cheery song when a trout is taking 
line is one of the charms of fishing; and I love to reel 
in a fish with my hand on the crank. Some good an- 
glers prefer an automatic where you "press the button" 
and the reel does the rest; but I am willing to do the 
rest. My favorite reel is a click with raised pillars. The 
two plates of a reel are kept apart by small posts, if 
that is the right name, and are held together by screws 
which go through the plates into these posts; and when 
your reel is filled to the posts it will take no more line. 
The "raised pillars" are merely raised projections on the 
plates which enable the reel to be filled with more line. 
My reason for preferring such a reel is because I use 
a ver y _h,eayy line, and need either raised pillars or a 
wjd^t :^eel to ■ Kb'ld Us ,$6y^ds: FeV anglers ca'f'ry as 
lifie, p.ml It is not ii^'^f^mty for pt^inMy trptrt 
fishing; one-third of it may be enough, but every angler 
gets notions of his own. 
Trout reels are not as expensive as those free-running 
ones for striped bass and other fishes. The latter often . 
cost $30 and $50, while a trout reel may be had from 
$3 to $8, not counting the things stamped out of tin. 
which cost a trifle; and are worth less — or w^orthless, as 
you please. 
Here is a point: Put 25yds. of line on my favorite 
reel, and a turn of the crank takes up slowly, for the 
spool is too wide for that length of line to make muc|i 
at a revolution; there is nothing left on the 
spindle. Therefore a short line should have a 
narrow reel. Over thirty years ago Billinghurst, of 
Rochester, N. Y., a celebrated rifle maker, made a reel 
entirely of wire, on a central plate which may have been 
ij'^in. in diameter; he soldered rings of wire of about 
lin., and the line ran in these. The object was to have 
the reel dry the line. I bought one, but as it had no 
click I dropped its use, and I have not seen one in 
years. Then came perforated plates, and no end of in- 
ventions. 
Perforated plates should not be depended upon to 
dry a line, for after a day's fishing it is seldom that 
there is not a chance to unreel it on the floor and dry 
it, while at home you should have one of the many 
appliances for reeling off the line and drying it. It does 
a line good to be reeled off, changed end for end and 
handled, especially' if it is an enameled waterproof silk 
line. Such a line, if left long on a reel, has a way of 
sticking to itself, not so that it requires force to sepa- 
rate it, but enough to roughen the surface. 
If there is one thing which the careless 'angler is apt 
to overlook in his care for his outfit, it is the reel. It 
worked all right last week, or last season — why not now? 
My friend, as gross a piece of machinery as a wheel- 
barrow needs oiling at times, and your reel may have 
had its oil washed out in the rain, or some sand may 
have gotten into its mechanism. I pray you to have a 
little screw-driver, of which the blade is not over j,i\n., 
and treat your reel as if you loved it ; take it apart, wipe 
and oil it, and trust it to be true to you. I have such 
an implement, made of nickeled steel, and perfectly flat, 
which is carried on my key-ring. It is ij^in. long and 
less than that at the rounded end. Before this is put in 
type I will show the implement to two of New York's 
large tackle dealers, and they may put some such im- 
plement on the market. A good reel is like a good gUn ; 
it is all right when you buy it, but its usefulness there- 
after depends upon the owner and the care which he 
takes of it. 
Leaders. 
Upon the soundness of the silkworm gut in the leader, 
or "casting line," as it is called in England, depends the 
strength of the tackle. It is the weakest link in the 
cl\ain. It is seldom that a rod or a reel line is broken, 
but if accident occurs it is usually to the leader. Good 
gut costs moi-e than poor, but it is well worth it. The 
best is of uniform thickness and round. The latter 
qitality is ascertained by rolling it in the fingers. Lead- 
ers are best bought already made, from a reliable house 
which has a stock of gut to select from, and the makers 
can select gut and make neater knots than the amateur. 
There are anglers who like a tapered leader, the first 
few feet of twisted gut; but I don't care for it. Others 
like a 12ft. leader, but my choice is one of even size, not 
less than 6 nor more than 9ft,, and tied with slip knots, 
which allow the Hy to have its loop cut off and the leader 
knots slipped apart for its insertion; then when the leader 
is drawn together the fly is secure, but easily removed. 
The next best thing is a looped leader into which the 
flies can be readily looped and removed, and the latter 
is a desideratum, for when we fasten a hand fly with a 
loop on it to a single line it is hard to remove. The 
loops are used to fasten hand flies as the tail fly, or 
dropper, is fastened, two loops being interlocked with- 
out a knot. 
The color of a leader is a matter of individual taste. 
The late Francis Endicott had blue leaders for use when 
the sky was clear, tea-stained leaders for thunderstorms, 
and white ones for a sky filled with white clouds. I 
have my doubts about the ability of a trout to appreciate 
all this attention to his A^sion, and use a bluish leader 
at all times. The theory is that the line is a thing to be 
seen, but that the fly is some distance away, and its con- 
nection with the line is invisible. This is true when 
there is a ripple on the water which hides the fall of 
both line and leader, but on perfectly still water trout 
will often rise when the fall of both line and leader is 
seen, especially if the leader be shiny. Such conditions 
are not favorable for frequent rises, but they occur. 
The light rod needs a light line and a light leader, 
i. e.. all three should be in proportion. In a long cast 
the line strikes the water before the leader has reached 
that spot, and then the latter goes on and staightens out. 
To illustrate this, put your finger tips on your shoulder, 
strike your elbow on the table, and follow with your 
wrist, knuckles and fingers. That is the way a fly goes 
out. To cast a fly in this manner is quite an art. which 
may be considered later. 
FUes. 
I might as well confess that in the matter of flies I 
am a Philistine, because the adherent to the natural 
school will rise and call me so. Many books have been 
written about artificial flies and how to tie them so as 
to im.itate the natural insect, and I may have a dozen 
such books beside the chapters on flies in a hundred 
general works on angling, for my angling library is a 
large one, a collection of over thirty years. Besides this 
I regularly read the London Fishing Gazette, in which 
hardly a week passes without an article or at least an 
item about dressing flies to imitate sorne fly, caterpillar, 
moth, or other thing on which trout feed, and by an 
imitation of which they may be deceived into taking 
the hook that is concealed therein. I mention this to 
show that I have studied the subject in the books 
and on the streams, and I hereby avow rtiy opinion that 
fidelity to nature in trout flies is a humbug. 
1 know scores of anglers who use all sorts of non- 
descript flies, but know of none who has had the cour- 
age to assail this antiquated, yet popular, belief. This 
is .tip rankiest .kind b'f fly*-casting hefesy, and will be §0 
re'f^ivfd in m0t}% wWre W^'in morfe cbiiserygtjye, 
and have more reverence for traditions than we have; 
but it may not pass unchallengeel on this side of the 
water. But as I have already called myself a Philistine, 
they are spared that trouble. 
For years anglers have shed ink in asking: "What 
docs the salmon take the fly for?" And it has not been 
satisfactorily answered. A salmon fly, let it be a Jock- 
Scot, silver doctor, or other well-known killer, does not 
resemble any insect that ever inhabited the earth, and as 
the adult salmon when ascending rivers to spawn takes 
no other nutrition than Jock Scots, doctors, silver doc- 
tors, mandarins and the like, all of which have a barbed 
steel sting in their tails, the question is a puzzle at which 
we all may guess. Most of these salmon flies are as 
gaudy as flies can be made, but they are creations of 
the fly-tyer's fancy; but salmon take them, and there 
our knowledge ends. 
The long and lengthening list of trout flies contains 
more nondescripts than alleged imitations, and I use 
the word "alleged" advisedl3\ for when I see a beauti- 
fully illustrated page of natural flies and their imitations 
I wonder that a trout could think them genuine. As 
I write I have before me the third edition of "The Prac-- 
tical Flv-Fishcr," by the late John Jackson. London, 
t88o. The lithograph plates are" fine, but I will only 
criticise the first plate. Here are four natural flies and 
their alleged imitations. Three of them may pass, but 
No. 3 illustrates what I have said: The natural insect 
has the shaue of a bedbug; has four wings: the hinder 
pair are drab, while the others are scarlet. The imitation 
looks bke a brown hackle,, all hairs. If the student will 
turn to Plate VII. and note the pictures of Insects Nos. 
35 and 38, and their "imitations," and can then believe 
that a trovtt can see anv difference between the imita- 
tions, then he has the gift of imagination. 
Size, color and form attract trout in the order named. 
Trout in some streams and lakes will only take large 
flies, but these waters are usually remote, and the fish 
have not had the caution bred into them that trout 
in waters which have been fished for years have got. 
Men may argue about reason and instinct, but it is a 
fact that a green backwoods trout will rise to anything 
that is offered, just as the Sheriff of Wayback comes to 
New York to buy green goods and gold bricks; but 
an old trout, often prickeel, learns caution, and trans- 
mits that quality to its progeny; the heedless young 
trout takes the first lure, and has no progeny to transmit 
its rashness to+ If this statement needs proof, let us 
look at ducks, deer and other animals which once mere- 
ly kept out of reach of the man who had the bow and 
arrow, and sec how their progeny have increased the 
distance as man has lengthened his reach, first with flint- 
lock rifles, .good for looyds., to their carttion to-day. 
There is no instinct in it; it is reason, pure and simple. 
The wounded that survived learned a lesson and trans- 
mitted it to their posterity. 
If we admit this, why not admit it in the ca.se of the 
trout? We might as well do it, because the evidence 
is all 'on our side. In the State of New York there js 
the great Caledonia Creek: it would be a "riv^r" in 
some parts of the world: it has been fished for many 
generations, and a man might Cast several days over 
thousands of' trout, and not get a rise. Then comes 
a day when they will rise for natural flies by the thousand, 
but a strange angler who uses as larsje a fly as he takes 
trout in the Adirondacks with would have the torment 
of Tantalus about hira, trout rising everywhere but at 
his flies. 
A sjlance at a list of trout flies will show that most 
of them are nondescripts, such as red ibis. Ferguson. 
Parmachenee Belle, Montreal, tiueen of the water, grizzly 
king, Abbev. jungle cnck. beaver-kill, kinft of the water. 
Governor Alvord, St. Patrick, Professor. Rangeley, Hen- 
shall, black prince. General Hooker, and a hundred 
more. Many of these are favorites of long standing and 
great reotitation as killers. Against this we have but 
few so-called imitations of the natural fly, such as white 
miller, green and grav drakes, stone flv. cow-dungi black 
gnat, sand fly, alder fly, May fly, black and red ant, and 
a few others. 
All flies can be made on different sized hooks, and 
as a rule you mav use a larger fly \Vhere the fly is not 
much used, and thev seem to attract green trout better 
than small ones. Some twentv-five vears ago I fished 
some mill ponds back of Pcterboro. Ont., and they pre- 
ferred flies tied on No. 4 Snroat hook to the smaller 
ones, while on Long Island I never used a larger hook 
than an 8 Sproat. and often a No. i£>. Therefore no 
special directions can be given as to the size of the 
honk the flj^' is tied on. 
The dealer has a bewildering display of flies to offer, 
because he has occasional demands for some of them, 
and the names are on them, or even he would be in doubt 
as to their "pedigree." I freely confess that of the vast 
numbers of trout flies I "know them by sight," but can- 
not name more than twentj^; and that is enousrh to be 
intimate with, although one may have a nodding ac- 
quaintance with many of the herd. 
From eight to twelve kinds of flies are enough for 
most waters, but the angler will need half a dozen of 
each kind if he is out for a week's trouting, for flies have 
a way of eloping with a handsome trout, of preferring 
to remain imbedded in a sunken log, or of choosing 
rest in some tree top, and if the trout are choosing 
to feast on that kind of fly at that time, and you have 
no duplicate, why there vou are! 
Ignorin.g the names, the angler, having settled on the 
size, will do well to select an assortment of colors. Sup- 
pose he decides on eight varieties; then he wants a 
white-miller for dusk, a royal coachman or some fly witl) 
both white and dark for early dawn and late afternoon, 
with browns, grays, reds, yellows, and a coui^le of com- 
binations of these colors. If he takes a dozen varieties 
he can select four more variations, for flies are made in 
kaleidoscopic variety'-. Flies are made in such great 
variety for the same purpose that Peter Pindar's razor.s 
were. 
If, however, the trout angler lie a worm-fisher, a,"? 
many unconverted .good rnrn are. then I will say untt) 
him: Use tlie sUm, long-shanked hook known as the 
New York trout hook; or, if that is not obtainable! 
the long-shanked Kirby will do ; but for the worm th^ 
ordinarv shank of most hooks is too short. 
As this a^titele has ^e^n taken , up W tfik a!;>piit taoljljs, 
J m)p reel lip 4ni 90mm JfpV jj )s 'p %<i ijsrd fov fr'o'jfjt, 
