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, considerable attention most assuredly must be 

 paid to suitable tackle. Any boy may catch sun- 

 fish, suckers, or trout with a bean pole, a piece of 

 cord for a line and a rude nondescript bait. Black 

 bass are a fish of an entirely different type, and 

 the day when a black bass rod was considered to 

 mean one weighing two pounds and measuring 

 sixteen feet, with a chalk line, and a reel like a 

 small clock, is delegated to the far off past of ten 

 years ago. Some few of the old anglers made their 

 own rods, and scored heavily in their takes of fish, 

 to the wonder and amazement of the other fisher- 

 men who still adhered to the old heavy pattern. 



My idea of the best rod for black bass fishing is 

 the happy medium between the trout fly rod, and 

 the trout bait rod. The one I generally use is 

 eight feet three inches long, weighs nine ounces, 

 is three -jointed, the balance perfect, and the bend 

 true from tip to butt. It was made by H. H. 

 Kiffe, 318 Fulton street, Brooklyn. I have killed 

 many bass with this rod during the past two sea- 

 sons, some weighing as high as four pounds, and 

 have also caught pickerel weighing eight pounds 

 with the same pole. The butt is white ash, and 

 the second joint and tip finely selected lance wood. 

 The butt has a wound grip, and the metal tip is of 

 the four-ring pattern, the strongest and lightest 

 made. I prefer standing guides. Some peo- 

 ple prefer Greenheart or Wasahba for tips, but 

 lancewood or red cedar is the best, I think. 



The great fault in many rods is want of " back," 



