TACKLE AND EQUIPMENT 61 



a good thing to be able to send away a joint for 

 repair or inspection without putting a favourite rod 

 hors de combat. Of course, necessity is the mother 

 of invention, and one can generally engineer a rough 

 splice, even in the case of the most awkward frac- 

 tures. I have killed fish with a rod with the two 

 upper joints awkwardly cobbled together round the 

 ferrule with a piece of luncheon-paper string. My 

 brother-in-law, Colonel Malcolm, sends me the follow- 

 ing account of a similar experience of his own in 

 Canada. 



' Once in Canada an unnoticed rootlet caught my 

 foot on the bank of the St. Anne du Nord, and 

 brought me down, making four smashes in my top 

 and second joint, three of which were mended up 

 with string, roughly but efficiently, and the fourth 

 somehow did not show till I had hooked a salmon, 

 and then the way the thing gaped was a caution. 

 This could only be met by turning the rod round, 

 and the tenderest care. Thus deprived of strength 

 the fish led me down the river, and behold ! a small 

 islet on the wrong side of which he was determined 

 to pass, but gentleness coupled with firmness brought 

 him into the right path, and down to a lovely back- 

 water, where he was more easily managed ; then I dis- 

 covered that a young Irish officer had left the gaff 



