Harper's Outdoor Book for Boys

by Joseph H. Adams

HOOK-BAITING AND FLY-CASTING

Do not try to lift a sunken line suddenly from the water. Coax it to the surface, as else the resistance of the line will probably snap your rod.

Do not try to make the forward cast on just the same plane as the back cast for fear that the end of the line should snap like a whip-lash, which if you were actually fishing would crack off your flies pretty certainly. Therefore make the lift of the back cast with a slight sweep (generally inward towards the body is the more natural), and deliver the forward cast straight out towards its destination. But always aim about your own height above the spot on the water you mean to reach to insure the line falling lightly.

In all your practising remember that the key-note of good casting is in getting a good, clean, high back cast, and in never sending the line forward until it is quite straight out behind and above you in the back cast. If you have with you some one to guide you as to when it is straightened out it will be a great gain, particularly as the time required for the straightening varies with the length of line that is used.

Do not try to cast a long line until you have learned to cast a short one well; and well means not only with a high back cast and straight forward, but also accurately as to aim and delicately.

Repairs, Knots, and Splices

As has been said already it hardly pays nowadays to make one’s own tackle, at least for a beginner. But a few things it is useful to know so that repairs and supplies of a sort can be made in an emergency. But emergencies are to a great degree prevented by care—by cleaning and looking over the rod and the reel whenever you come home, and keeping it safe. The reel may need a drop of oil now and then, and it should be always kept out of the dust, in a box or drawer, and above all from falls or blows.

The repairs most commonly called for are the splicing of a broken rod, the replacing a lost tip-ring or guide-ring, the knotting of gut, and the putting a hook to gut. The repair-kit, to use a cyclist’s phrase, consists of a piece of shoemaker’s wax, some moderately stout sewing-silk—number A being the best suited for quick work of all sorts—some bits of flexible brass wire, and a pocket-knife. As the method of wrapping used in all repairs is essentially the same let us begin with the simplest, the putting the hook to gut.

First wax well a piece of silk half a yard or more in length. Choose your hook and the piece of gut (or line if you do not use gut) to which it is to be fastened. Take the bend of the hook firmly between the left thumb and forefinger and with the right take two or three turns of the silk about the other end of the shank (Fig. 4 A). Then lay the gut on the under side of the hook, reaching two-thirds down the shank, and wind the silk snugly, coil against coil, over both hook and gut towards the bend of the hook B. When the gut is nearly covered make a loop as at C, but relatively larger than in the figure and keep on winding so that the part a covers in not only hook and gut but the part b, clearing the silk from the bend of the hook at each turn. When four or five turns have been taken draw on c and pull it snug. (D shows the loop not quite drawn down.) When snug cut off the end and you have the “invisible knot” or “whip-finish” universally used by fishermen. The same whipping and finish are used for the other repairs mentioned above.