FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 8weeter in hand, more powerful at work and less subject to accident than 

 one with ferruled joints; but the greater convenience and quickness in 

 setting up a ferruled rod brought ferrules into almost universal use. To 

 bind up splices with sticky cord at the beginning of each day's fishing, and 

 to unbind them in the evening, was a trial to one's patience. It was worse 

 when, on cold mornings, the cord was not sticky, for then the lashing was 

 apt to prove insecure. 



The disadvantage of ferrules was far more serious. If you forgot to bind 

 the wire loops together the middle or top joint would be sure to slip out in 

 the act of casting. If you did not so forget, the ferrules had a nasty trick of 

 refusing to surrender their hold when the rod had to be taken down. Worst 

 of all, the top joint was very apt to snap short off immediately above the 

 ferrule if a sudden strain came upon it, such as hooking a fish unexpectedly 

 or catching something in the back cast. Then what a treat was prepared 

 for the angler. He was pretty sure to have come away from home leaving 

 his pliers reposing in the tackle box; fingers, nails, teeth — all may have to 

 be employed, with interjections of corresponding variety and force, upon 

 the wretched stump sticking half an inch out of the ferrule. 



Oh, fai passi par Id several times! I remember a fish taking my fly 

 under the bank in the swirly Marrable pool on Helmsdale, just as I was 

 withdrawing it for another cast. Crack went the top joint close to the fer- 

 rule. The fish ran about for a while, till the broken top slid down the line 

 and hit him on the nose. Away he went at high speed and back came the 

 top joint and the fly without him! 



I have written about ferrules in the past tense, as if they were quite 

 obsolete. So they are in truth, albeit there be those anglers so conservative 

 as to persevere with them, just as there are elderly ladies who have never 

 been in a motor car. But I have never met with anybody who has gone 

 back voluntarily from the use of a rod spliced with adhesive tape to one 

 fitted with ferrules. It is quite feasible to make the change upon an old 

 and favourite rod by sacrificing about a foot in length. I have a good green- 

 heart, originally 18 ft. long and ferruled, from which the ferrules have 

 been removed and splices substituted, reducing it to about 16^ ft. It is now 

 equally serviceable as before the operation, and leaves one at the end of a 

 long day with a far less disagreeable sensation in back, shoulders and arms 

 than it did when of its pristine proportions. 



Splicing has not yet been applied to split -cane rods, though probably 

 if anglers who prefer that material were to insist upon having spliced 

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