FLY-FISHING. 253 



better than with any other rod I ever used. It is 

 quick, reliable, vigorous, and light, the slightest 

 motion gives the tip the requisite spring, and it 

 answers every effort of the hand instantly. It kills 

 a fish powerfully and rapidly, and exposure to wet 

 neither deadens nor weakens it. The ordinary hick- 

 ory and ash-joint are much stronger, but are logy 

 in their action and far heavier ; joints of split cane 

 or malacca are light, beautiful, and expensive, but 

 are almost unattainable, and are, occasionally at least, 

 deficient in power ; and whalebone, for any part of 

 the rod, is dull, heavy, inappropriate, and when 

 water-soaked, utterly worthless. For these reasons 

 and many others— these are enough, however— I pre- 

 fer a cedar rod. 



Many persons give the preference to a limber rod, 

 one that bends in the middle, and they can, after 

 infinite practice, cast well with it; in pleasant 

 weather they can throw a light line, but when the 

 storm lowers and the wind blows, or the current 

 rages, or the cast is very long, or the bushes over- 

 hang, then good-bye to the gentleman with that 

 most wretched of implements, a weak-backed lim- 

 ber rod. Give me no such inefficient deception to 

 break my wrist, my heart, and my patience ; as well 

 tell me that whalebone has the vigor of a steel 

 spring. 



The joints of a rod are united in various ways ; 

 with the salmon-rod it is almost essential, and with 

 all rods desirable, to use splices, but the custom is to 

 indulge the laziness of ferrules. American ferrules 



