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adopt the use of a limber, springy, spliced rod, in 

 preference to a stiff-jointed one. He will find that, 

 having once overcome the little propensity the 

 rod at first evinces for sending it " to grass," the 

 fly drops upon the water in a far more satisfactory 

 manner. It floats out, as it were, and, hovering for 

 a moment when at its utmost stretch, alights like 

 thistledown upon the surface of the water, instead 

 of hitting it with the force of a pebble or the pre- 

 liminary hailstone of a summer storm. If, in the 

 excitement of the moment, you strike somewhat 

 too strongly, the hook is not torn from its hold ; 

 if the fish jump, the rod yields to the strain ; if 

 chance or carelessness slacken the hold, the pres- 

 sure is merely abated, not removed. Even in un- 

 practised hands, a fish finds far less chance of escape, 

 for the limber rod yields to each struggle, and for 

 the fish to obtain a dead pull is impossible. There 

 is something, too, so graceful in the mere use, as 

 well as in the detailed play, of a pliant rod : no 

 exertion, hardly any strength, is required ; the rod 

 itself appears, as though instinct with life, to have 

 shot forth the " imponderable " fly into boundless 

 space. This, I need hardly say, is not the work 

 of the top joint, or of any other joint: the rod 

 plays and works " homogeneously ," to use a long 

 word, from the butt to the tip. The assumed 



