ROD TAPERS AND ROD PLOTTING 105 



after his fish instead of waiting for the fish to come 

 to him. 



The salmon rod is an overgrown trout fly-rod, 

 suited for its use in killing the larger and heavier 

 fish. Salmon fishing has been much more extensively 

 indulged in abroad than in the United States; con- 

 sequently the prevailing popular style of salmon 

 tackle was until somewhat recently dictated wholly 

 by the ideas of foreign makers, principally English, 

 Scotch, or Irish. These formerly were accustomed 

 to produce absurdly formidable affairs in salmon 

 rods, running to twenty feet in length and weighing 

 several pounds. But the influence of the combined 

 elegance and efficiency of the lighter, American 

 trout-rods was reflected in the sphere of salmon- 

 fishing tackle, so that now one rarely finds a rod of 

 over sixteen feet in the hands of a modern salmon- 

 angler; and many of them are shorter than this. 

 Thus a recent number of the London Fishing Gazette 

 tells about one British angler writing another: U I 

 once owned an 1 8-foot greenheart salmon-rod, but 

 induced a naval officer, ordered to British Columbia, 

 to accept it as a present sheer luck this, of course. 

 I also owned two ly-footers; one of these a friendly 

 Hussar put permanently out of business the first 

 morning he borrowed it, but the other one I can 

 neither sell nor lose, and keep for lending to friends, 

 with the result that they soon buy rods for them- 

 selves. This would really suit you admirably if 



