FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 



on the dry fly, hundreds of lusty sea-trout, and on one memorable occa- 

 sion in a West Highland loch it brought ashore a salmon of 7 lb. and a 

 yellow trout on the same cast. 



My old friend, Charles Barrington, author of ** Seventy Years' Fishing," 

 who has passed away while I am inditing these pages, with whom and 

 others I formerly shared the Avington water on the Itchen, used to stalk 

 up and down the meadows beside that fair stream carrying a single- 

 handed rod; but he was attended by a servant carrying a double-handed 

 one, which, at this distance of time, appears to have been of prodigious 

 length. I never saw him do execution with it; but I understand that it 

 enabled him occasionally to put a fly artistically over a rising fish on the 

 far side of the river, which a shorter rod would not have covered without 

 causing the fly to drag. 



Having spoken of split-cane salmon rods in terms somewhat short 

 of eulogy, I have nothing but praise for that as material for a trout 

 rod, especially for dry-fly work, which exacts the utmost precision in 

 casting. No more perfect instrument could be placed in a trout -flsher's 

 hand than a nine -foot split -cane by a good maker who has a reputation 

 to lose; but beware of cheap manufacture in which the cane has been sawn, 

 instead of rent, into the segments with which such rods have to be built up. 

 No such good maker will allow a rod to leave his establishment unless 

 it is built of cane well seasoned before it is rent and stored for several 

 months after the segments have been glued together to allow the glue to 

 set. There prevails some difference of opinion as to the merits of a steel 

 centre in these rods. I have no hesitation in pronouncing in favour of the 

 same, because it reduces the chance of a broken top to a minimum, and 

 fracture of a split-cane rod is irreparable. A sharp knife and adhesive 

 tape suffice to splice a broken greenheart by the waterside; but for a 

 broken split-cane there is no remedy but a new joint. 



In testing the action of rods before they are finished the maker of a rod 

 in greenheart or any other solid wood can remedy inequality of play by 

 paring down those parts which are too stiff. This is impossible in the 

 manufacture of the split -cane article, because the strength of cane is in 

 its outer skin, which must therefore be kept intact. If the trial proves 

 any joint to be too rigid for the rest, it must be laid aside and a new one 

 provided, for the limber joint or joints may not be shortened to bring 

 them into play with the rest owing to the fancy of customers who require 

 all the joints of a fly rod to be of the same length. 

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