What's the difference between gut and silk?

Chit Chat
1

Hello fellow workers!

I investigate now the fishing gear in ABOK #292 and can’t understand difference between gut and silk which the snell is made from.

Among many definitions in OED i’ve chosen the next one:

gut is “the silken fibre obtained from the intestines of the silkworm. (In full silkworm gut, silk-gut.) Chiefly used in the making of fishing tackle. The worm, when about to spin, is killed and put into vinegar, then pulled in two, and the ?gut? is drawn out to a thin thread and dried.”

But what’s the difference between gut and silk? This one and that one is silk. Maybe the difference in outward appearance?

Any comments?

Regards.

2

Hi vladimir3722

Fishing line used to be made from 2 materials:

Gut (sometimes called “cat gut” but never actually from cats!) was made from sheep’s intestines. It is still used for professional tennis racquet strings but made from cow intestines now.

Silk is spun by silkworms when making a cocoon - the case they make before turning into a moth - and this is carefully unravelled and spun into thread. It is a protein made by silkworms (and spiders). The thread is woven into silk cloth and was used as a thread for fishing line as for a natural material it is very light and strong (but nowhere near as strong as modern fluorocarbon fishing line).

For fishing these days both materials have been replaced by artificial material.

Barry

3

Thank you, Barry.

My wife worked some time ago in operating room and said that there surgeons used “ketgoot” (it sounds in such a way in Russian). I googled and found that Wikipedia says about this material:

in Russian

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/������

and in English

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catgut

as about the same material.

I was amazed that such material was used not only in fishing in past but also as strings in some musical instruments today.

Again thanks.