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| | Fly Fishing History: Silkworm Gut |
 | | Gut wasn't a perfect material and it had many drawbacks; as I have already mentioned, it required soaking, but it also had a tendency to rot, and its lack of longitudinal stiffness meant that a gut dropper was much more likely to spin around the cast than its horsehair counterpart. |
 | | On the other hand, gut did allow the presentation of the fly on a nearly transparent point, was resistant to damage, and didn't share the tendency of horsehair casts to 'pink' - that is to spring slack loops of hair out of the side of a twisted cast. |
 | | When gut first began to be drawn, by sharpening the end of the strand, and pulling it through the bored centre of a jewel, the manufacturers cast around for a common measurement system, and settled on the watchmakers' favourite. |
| www.flyfishinghistory.com /silkworm.htm (1309 words) |
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