Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: fish, or unloose it without scaring him ? In addition to this, with a double-handed rod you are able to keep much more out of sight of the fish; you can throw a longer line, and, as I said before, kill your fish sooner. A double-handed rod is only inferior to a single-handed one in cramped places, where trees line both sides of the river, and you have to throw under your wrist with one hand, perhaps holding on to a bough with the other. For this, and for brook- fishing, a single-handed rod is the proper implement; but, for the reasons above stated, nothing can beat the double-handed one. The Heel.?I now pass on to the reel. Here custom must again be the guide. Some prefer a click reel, some a noiseless one. I always use a click one, but not of bright brass; it should be bronzed, when the rays of the sun do not play upon it nor attract the notice of the fish. A narrow, flat reel is preferable to any other, as the line runs easier off it, and the circumference of the body of the line, when wound on it, being larger, it is less liable to kink. Great care should be taken in proportioning the sizeand weight of a reel to the rod for which it is intended, or else too much weight may be put upon the butt, or vice versa. The Line.?Fly-lines have of late years been brought to great perfection, and very important is it that this portion of the paraphernalia should be carefully attended to. Fly-lines are made of horsehair, silk and hair, and plaited silk. I invariably use the latter, not from custom or habit, for I am not one of those who " Laudator temporis acti." I live and learn?I try everything that comes before me, and am content to be guided by the somewhat homely maxim that " the proof of the pudding is in the eating." There can be nothing so delightful as a new and improve...