236 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



rivers and large fish, the length may be twenty feet. My favourite 

 length is seventeen-and-a-half feet, and with it I can pleasantly fish for 

 sea-trout and grilse, and have no fear of the biggest salmon, substituting 

 for the lighter grilse winches and lines, larger and stouter salmon ones. 

 The salmon, like the trout rod, should consist of four pieces, made of 

 wood of similar sorts and qualities. Its balance should be just, and all 

 its fittings most carefully executed. In former writings, I suggested the 

 following improvement in salmon-rods. There should be no spare top 

 for trolling or spinning, but merely a spare fly top, which should be of 

 bamboo cane rent longitudinally into wedge-shaped pieces. The original 

 position of these pieces should be altered, so as to oppose sound parts to 

 defective ones, to reverse the grain, and to have elastic action in all sides 

 of the top-joint. The pieces should be first glued in, and then tied 

 strongly together for a day or two. The whole should then be rounded 

 and tapered, strongly whipped and ringed. Salmon-rod tops should not 

 taper to a fine point, and their last ring should not be of brass wire, but 

 of hollowed and smooth steel, projecting upwards like the other rings. 

 Such a spare top should be reserved for heavy work in rivers, in and 

 over which there are rocks and trees, rendering the playing of a fish 

 more than ordinarily difficult, and tackle of more than common strength 

 necessary. 



Trolling-rods should not be longer than eleven feet ; spinning ones not 

 more than fifteen. They should be of the same materials as those 

 already named. The preference now is given to East India mottled or 

 burnt cane, for all the pieces except the top one, and that should be of 

 lance-wood and bamboo-cane. The pieces of the trolling-rod should be 

 very stout, with a few very large and upright rings. The pieces of the 

 spinning-rod should be moderately stout something between those of 

 the trolling-rod and the larger trout fly-rod and they should be ringed 

 with middle-sized upright rings, and should be tolerably elastic. 



The roach-rod should be, for bank-fishing, eighteen or twenty feet in 

 length. All its pieces should be of the lightest white Spanish or Hon- 

 duras cane, except the top, which should be fine and light and elastic 

 and of bamboo-cane. The roach-rod for boat-fishing should be of the 

 same material, but not more than twelve feet long. 



The ordinary bottom-rod for bank-fishing should be sixteen feet in 

 length, of ash, hickory, and bamboo. It should resemble a grilse fly- rod, 

 but be a little less "whippy" or elastic. The boat bottom-rod for barbel, 

 chub, &c., should be eleven or twelve feet in length, of the same mate- 

 rials as the last, but of stouter and stifFer build. I am not favourable to 

 what are called " general rods," or " walking-cane " rods, and therefore 

 shall say nothing further about them. 



The trout and salmon rods, and trout and salmon flies I fish with, are 

 made by Blacker. The purchaser, however, must " try conclusions," as 

 Walton says in his chapter on barbel fishing, that is, make experiments ; 

 and in selecting angling apparatus, I advise that he try his conclusions at 

 the following largely stocked angling arsenals : to wit, those of Messrs. 

 Alfred, Moorgate-street ; Ainge and Aldred, Oxford-street; Anderson, 



