140 Wet- Fly Fishing 



Messrs. Hardy Brothers' cane-built rods 

 are so well known, that to mention the 

 subject at all without mentioning their 

 names would seem to me to be quite 

 impossible. The question of steel-centred 

 or not steel-centred rods is one, however, 

 which I am not prepared to go into. 



I am inclined to favour a cane-built rod 

 without the steel centre for wet-fly work. 



For salmon-fishing I feel sure that steel- 

 centred rods will kill " a fish " quicker, but 

 I am dealing with trout-fishing, and that 

 with the wet-fly, and I fail to see any real 

 advantage in the steel centre. 



Eods of well-seasoned and suitable wood 

 have served me well, and I myself require 

 none other. Messrs. Forrest & Sons, of Kelso, 

 and of 24, Thomas Street, Grosvenor Square, 

 London, have built rods for me since the year 

 1860, and I should be ungrateful and even 

 unfair if I did not say, and say plainly, 

 that I never wish to handle better rods. 

 Indeed, all my rods have been made by that 

 firm. They have stood the severest tests, 

 the wood being well seasoned and all de- 

 fective pieces most carefully excluded. The 

 joints (the weak point in all cheap rods) 

 never seem to give way. In fact, with fair 

 usage, these rods last for a generation, if 



