Rod-making. 225 



I think it would be safe to say four out of five breaks 

 occur. To be able to repair such damage with the aid 

 of a few matches and a pocket-knife, and to resume fish- 

 ing promptly, is therefore very important. Even though 

 this could be had but at the cost of ten times the time 

 and trouble at home, the difference of occasion and facil- 

 ity considered, it would still be cheap. During the win- 

 ter, ferrules so fastened are apt to become loose, particu- 

 larly if the rod has been kept in a heated room. But 

 ten minutes' work at the beginning of the open season 

 will remedy all that. If you have the ability to make a 

 rod, you certainly can reset the ferrules on that rod. 



Avoid all fastening pins. The professional rod-makers 

 fancy they are necessary to the sale, or at least the repu- 

 tation, of their rods. Some fishermen think that any rod 

 they buy and pay for should stand every form of abuse, 

 and if it does not, the rod-maker is blamed and his work 

 decried. The makers know this, and that their reputation 

 for skilled and honest work is as sensitive as that of a 

 woman. It is for this class the fastening pin is intended. 

 You will hear each of the better known makers abused in 

 turn, something in this fashion: "Oh, yes, John Doe made 

 a good rod once upon a time, but now his business is so 

 grown that he trades upon his reputation, and uses any 

 kind of material, good, bad, and indifferent. Why, my 

 friend bought one of his rods, and the very first fish he 

 caught and it wasn't longer than your hand it broke;" 

 or, " after he had used it one season it was crooked as a 

 ram's horn," etc. The facts in such cases are usually 

 true, but they are not unfrequently cases of partial truth 

 only. If you knew in the one case that the fish struck 

 when the rod was perpendicular, so that it could not 



bend ; or in the other, that the rod was habitually left 

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