Rod-making. 159 



an excellent rod can be made from almost any of them. 

 If the stuff is good of its kind, the result depends upon 

 the proportionate thickness and taper used. And here 

 you have a decided advantage over the professional rod- 

 maker. He makes his rods to earn his daily bread. 

 Often he must select the worse when a better course is 

 well known to him, and this to meet the real or fancied 

 whim of the ordinary purchaser, upon whom he relies to 

 dispose of his goods. 



Among these may be mentioned the actual or sup- 

 posed requirement that the butt, middle joint, and tip 

 shall each be of equal length. This certainly has some- 

 thing in its favor, since, when the rod is apart, each 

 joint lends support to the others against accident in 

 transportation. But a little lengthening of the tip-case 

 will accomplish the same result, unless it be in carrying 

 the rod from the temporary lodging-place of the angler 

 to the stream he intends to fish, when the tip-case is 

 usually left behind. The life of a rod is in the middle 

 joint ; and by the usual method the ferrule uniting the 

 butt to that joint is about as injuriously located as it 

 well can be. It is advisable, therefore, to compromise on 

 this, and make the butt as short and the middle joint as 

 long as the distance you expect to carry your rod to 

 water, and the risk and inconvenience of your usual 

 means of travel, will permit. 



Another fashion which you will do well to eschew is 

 the struggle for excessive lightness. Some seem to 

 fancy that an angler is entitled to rank in the brother- 

 hood in inverse proportion to the weight of rod he uses, 

 and that irrespective of the waters to be fished. But 

 such is not the opinion of the judicious. He views with 

 a smile of pity the effort to make a wooden rod with its 



