CONSIDERATIONS INCIDENTAL 119 



to an extent which would nowadays lead to their 

 immediate rejection; but I have seen the maker 

 with one of them steer a good fish, hooked under 

 the opposite bank, by sheer handhng over dense 

 weed, into the waiting landing-net. And remem- 

 bering this, and remembering how a fish which 

 goes to weed can, if Hghtly handled from the first, 

 be forced, by play on his idiosyncrasy, to beat 

 himself free and up to the surface, I am inclined 

 to think that the modern angler is far too much 

 inclined to use force in handling a hooked fish, 

 and that a rod which achieves — as the light split 

 canes of the highest class do — a combination of 

 steely quickness and casting power with some- 

 thing of the sensitive delicacy of the wood rods of 

 old John Hammond is the equipment to have in a 

 tussle with a big fish on fine tackle. 



To kill a brace of trout four pounds and three 

 pounds six ounces on xxx gut in deep weedy and 

 snag-infested water between two bushes which I 

 could touch with either hand, and which pre- 

 vented movement up or down stream, is a feat 

 which I am sure my old-time heavy rods could 

 have done no better than did my six-ounce ten- 

 footer in 1909. Force was no good in such a 

 place, and force was never used until each trout 

 had been sufficiently bewildered and fatigued by 

 beating in vain against the nothing which re- 

 strained him to be kept more or less under the 

 rod's point till ready for the net. 



