36 SALMON FISHING 



It will serve no useful purpose to go back 

 to Dame Juliana Berners in her " Fysshynge 

 wyth an angle," as described in the " Booke of 

 St. Albans," A.D. 1486; but it will be sufficient 

 to draw some comparison between rods of the 

 present day, and those used by the past genera- 

 tion, many of which are still in existence. In- 

 deed, it is no strange thing occasionally to meet 

 an angler armed with a rod he can boast of as 

 having been used by his grandfather. The rods 

 of the past generation were really very primi- 

 tive weapons (so far as manufacture is concerned), 

 the material used being ash, hickory, or green- 

 heart, rounded and fitted together with spliced 

 or ferruled joints. 



The earliest form of joint was doubtless the 

 " splice," which has died hard. Even at the 

 present day, there still exist a few conservative 

 anglers of the old school, who prefer their rods 

 so made. The sole advantage, however, which 

 may be claimed for the "splice" is that it is 

 light. One is apt to imagine that it gives a 

 more perfect curve and action to the rod, but 

 this is a fallacy, and arises from the idea con- 

 veyed to the mind, by a splice in section being 

 two half-circles at the centre, and tapering 

 off at either end. But a splice so made is 

 useless for a rod which, as a matter of fact, 

 must be largely oval in section ; this creates 



