MEEITS OF THE GRILSE-KOD. 9 



balance of such a rod. Twenty-five yards of line 

 — perhaps, in the hands of a well-trained adept, 

 thirty yards — may be thrown with it, without 

 danger to its top-joint or small-pieces, and such a 

 cast is sufficiently long for all useful intents 

 and purposes, and the strongest salmon may be 

 checked in its career — hook, gut, and winch-line, 

 being of good material — by a rod not exceeding 

 in length seventeen feet. 



The sixteen foot rod is commonly called a grilse- 

 rod, because it is better adapted for throwing 

 a light line and small fly than a stouter rod, 

 which a long one must be, if made in proper 

 proportion. The rod that can successfully contend 

 against the agile and enduring powers of grilse, 

 will not eventually succumb to the brute, but 

 yielding force, of large well-fed salmon. In 

 wading, or fishing from a boat, a rod of sixteen 

 feet is the most convenient and appropriate. No 

 fish, not even a full-grown sea trout — I am speak- 

 ing, of course, of the migratory salmon tribe — can 

 be played into a helpless state of fatigue as 

 quickly with a small rod as with a large one. 

 Its pliancy yields to the struggles of the hooked 

 fish, and consequently the fish's strength is not 

 so rapidly exhausted, as when it meets with the 

 stiff-necked resistance a large rod will present. 



