ii8 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM 



casting a heavy tapered Halford line with wonder- 

 ful command. I had the privilege of trying it, 

 and I promptly acquired its duplicate, in addition 

 to the ten-footer of the same make which I 

 already possessed and had used the previous 

 season. 



I am not going to reargue here the long contro- 

 versy of light rod versus the old-style ounce-to- 

 the-foot weapon. The light rod has won its place, 

 and has come to stay. Those who have tried it 

 fairly are convinced that it will answer all neces- 

 sary calls for casting, that it is fully equal to 

 butting and killing large trout, and that it adds 

 a daintiness to the art of fly-fishing which the old- 

 time anglers of the heavy rod were hardly con- 

 scious it lacked. But I do want to press three 

 points in its favour beyond those enumerated : 

 (i) It casts a dehghtful short line, and I confess 

 to fishing consistently with the shortest line I 

 dare use, often with most of that in the country ; 

 (2) it can be fished steadily all day, wet or dry, 

 without tiring the hand — what a change from 

 those terrible wrist-breaking, hand-paralyzing, 

 blister-producing flails of the eighties and nineties ! 

 and (3) it enables one to play light with unequalled 

 sensitiveness. When I was a boy at Winchester, 

 old John Hammond had the length commonly 

 known nowadays as Chalkley's, and I well remem- 

 ber the rods which old John used to turn out for 

 fishing the Itchen. They were soft and floppy 



