The term - Gut ??

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magicone

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As my previous post, I've out of fishing for a few years.

An eldery gentleman was telling me what tackle he uses for Ledgering and how its made up.

He mentioned using a piece of "GUT" for attaching his lead to his hook. Years ago gut as I know it was 'Cat gut'. I didn't want to show my ignorance in not asking him what he actually used.

What would be used today as alternative in the term 'gut'.

Thanks
 
geoffmaynard

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They had very limited materials back then. Today we would use monofilament for most applications where previously gut would have been used.
I assume he was talking about what today we call the hooklength. This can also be in flurocarbon or one of the specialist braid materials out there.
 
barbelboi

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I'm with Geoff on that one - You never used horsehair then Geoff?;) Terrible stuff catgut, prepared from the natural fibres from the walls of animal intestines - that would give the anti brigade something to talk about if it was widely used today.
Jerry
 
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The old 'x' system for describing diameters on trout leaders was derived from using gut. Apparently there were holes of varying diameters in a die, through which the gut was pulled and scraped thinner. Ever decreasing hole sizes were used so 3x gut had been pulled through 3 holes in the die - I THINK?
 
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barbelboi said:
I'm with Geoff on that one - You never used horsehair then Geoff?;) Terrible stuff catgut, prepared from the natural fibres from the walls of animal intestines - that would give the anti brigade something to talk about if it was widely used today.
Jerry
Click to expand...

Jerry, wearing another hat (I used to be a professional cellist in a previous existence)
I can tell you that Gut strings for violins, cello's etc are still widely available and used (some people prefer the sound, being mellower than steel strings)
 
barbelboi

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That's interesting xenon, I also always thought that gut was used on various stringed instruments before used for fishing line - not sure if that's fact though.
Jerry
 
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barbelboi said:
That's interesting xenon, I also always thought that gut was used on various stringed instruments before used for fishing line - not sure if that's fact though.
Jerry
Click to expand...

Gut on stringed instruments goes way back-harps and lyres out of the pyramids
have them.
 
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Nowt to do with animal guts and intestines, but with the silkworm - Silkworm Gut

When I began flyfishing at the age of six, nylon of course had largely replaced gut, yet many of the old-time dry fly fishers far preferred it to the new, early, nightmare nylons.

You had to pre-soak silkworm gut (tackle-makers from Hardy downwards made Cast [Leader] Soakers - lovely boxes and wallets etc ) or it would break under no pressure at all.
 
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laguna

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Paul Boote said:
Nowt to do with animal guts and intestines, but with the silkworm - Silkworm Gut

When I began flyfishing at the age of six, nylon of course had largely replaced gut, yet many of the old-time dry fly fishers far preferred it to the new, early, nightmare nylons.

You had to pre-soak silkworm gut (tackle-makers from Hardy downwards made Cast [Leader] Soakers - lovely boxes and wallets etc ) or it would break under no pressure at all.
Click to expand...

Fascinating!
 
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The old-time dry fly, gut diehards were not some bunch of "The EU banned my blasted filament lightbulbs" types, but valued gut for its properties: it's weight (greater than nylon); its lesser tendency to kink and to 'wind knot' (wind up on itself, as do some fine coarse fishing hooklength lines if used as mainline when float fishing); its strength (when soaked) beside that of the then wildly inconsistent nylon - plus, above all, its ability to turn a fly over, i.e. absorb the energy of the unrolling fly line during and at the completion of a forward cast and roll itself itself out straight and deliver the fly gently (and not in some splashy heap surrounded by a mass of coils of collapsed mono).

Many years later, flyfishers thought: "Now, hang on a minute ... those gut fanciers had something...".

So we now have tapered, braided nylon and furled fly leaders, which do the job that gut once did and don't need soaking.
 
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laguna

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I always assumed; that cats were a real scarcity in years of old, blame the angler or cellist or perhaps very common but gutless felines with an inability to digest or mouse hunt adorning many long shanked antique hooks (without an eye or spade). Hooks had micro barbed shanks produced by some swift force from a bladed instrument? seemingly not from that link which I find curious considering the tackle elders had the ability to make a large barb behind the point. The purpose being as an anchor for the twisted leader to hold while the glue set.

The silk worm, silk glands vividly dissected are a real eye watering eye opener!
 
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laguna said:
I always assumed; that cats were a real scarcity in years of old, blame the angler or cellist or perhaps very common but gutless felines with an inability to digest or mouse hunt adorning many long shanked antique hooks (without an eye or spade). Hooks had micro barbed shanks produced by some swift force from a bladed instrument? seemingly not from that link which I find curious considering the tackle elders had the ability to make a large barb behind the point. The purpose being as an anchor for the twisted leader to hold while the glue set.

The silk worm, silk glands vividly dissected are a real eye watering eye opener!
Click to expand...


Hooks.

Much stick has been given to the Redditch hookmakers and how they failed to take on the chemically sharpened, microbarbed Far East hook revolution of the early 1980s, but something said to me in the mid 1970s by a then late-middle-aged lady, one the hook girls at the Partridge of Redditch Mount Pleasant works, who had worked for many years at Allcocks and Milwards before she finally joined Partridge, "Barbs, dear? Oh, we could do them lots smaller, but the trade never wanted them.", might cast some light...


PS - the above was borne out in 1984 or 1985 when my pal Kevin (of Horton and Blackwater and some other waters) and his girlfriend were living with me at my home near Windsor after returning penniless from a long and very successful India trip in my footsteps that I had helped them with. At the end of a summer weekend away in Dorset they returned with an old suitcase full of boxes of old hooks that they had bought from a tackleshop down there that was clearing old store-room stock as it slowly closed down.

In the suitcase were boxes of hooks - 100s, Grosses (244) - of many patterns by a long-gone Redditch firm, Albert Smith.

I had the fly patterns (no use to Kev').

Many of them made for the Canadian market.

Ferociously sharp and with tiny barbs. Perfect temper. I've caught salmon to 29 pounds and sea-trout to over 30 (one of them on a fine wire size-12 double) with the hooks in the years since.

Superb hooks.

What we missed...
 
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barbelboi

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terry m said:
What is the breaking strain of cats guts?

If you fish snaggy waters do you use horse guts?
Click to expand...

Ha ha, nice one Terry - I think you'll find that usually sheep or goat intestines were used although some other animals were also used - don't think they ever used cats:D
Jerry
 
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Gut and the late 19th Century to mid-20th Century Cult of the Dry Fly spawned some wonderful items of tackle, including Twisting Engines (pictured further down this page) - Gadgets | Tackle Treasures

I once saw a fine one of these in an old tackleshop in Srinagar, Kashmir, where the owner's father had until the late 1940s twisted up special, super-strong, braided gut spinning traces for visiting British anglers (who were there for the trout on fly) if they were heading off much further down the Jhelum River to fish for the Mighty Mahseer.
 
chav professor

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Paul Boote said:
Gut and the late 19th Century to mid-20th Century Cult of the Dry Fly spawned some wonderful items of tackle, including Twisting Engines (pictured further down this page) - Gadgets | Tackle Treasures

I once saw a fine one of these in an old tackleshop in Srinagar, Kashmir, where the owner's father had until the late 1940s twisted up special, super-strong, braided gut spinning traces for visiting British anglers (who were there for the trout on fly) if they were heading off much further down the Jhelum River to fish for the Mighty Mahseer.
Click to expand...

And thankfully why I welcome your FM 'pop-in' sessions Paul.... interesting stuff.
 
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Paul Boote

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chav professor said:
And thankfully why I welcome your FM 'pop-in' sessions Paul.... interesting stuff.
Click to expand...


On a historical and non-political note (I don't mean the following to be taken up and chewed over nastily), the destruction of the Jhelum River mahseer fishery and the lands about the river changed Britain forever.

The best fishing lay at The Junction - the confluence of the rivers Jhelum and Poonch in the Mirpur District of Kashmir - where huge numbers of mahseer, some of them 60- and 70-pounders, would gather in due season. In the early to mid 1960s a huge dam, the Mangla - Mangla Dam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - was built at the spot, flooding the confluence and vast tracts of land around it, resulting in a huge displacement of local residents. Many moved to live and work in the cities of the country in which Mirpur was now located (Pakistan); many others went and found jobs in the fast-declining woollen mills of Yorkshire. The rest is history.
 
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well paul boote you mention a long gone ALBERT SMITH , that brought back a time only a few years back in fact , i bought an albert smith cane pike rod from fleebay for a tenner , god it was in a sorry state even though it had all the original eyes and ferrules , so i stripped it back , refurbed the cork but and re whipped it , it had locking ferrules too , then some handsome coats of varnish ,and what a lovely rod it turned into, even had alberts name in the brass but cap. Now hanging in my mates tackle shop together with some other split canes i brought back to life. Tight lines mate.
 
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