Fishing Eods. 149 



and weight of bait rods been reduced, but fly rods of all 

 patterns have been much reduced in length, during the past 

 fifteen years, to their great advantage. 



The Henshall Black Bass Minnow Eod. 



While a rod may vary somewhat, according to the mode 

 of angling, there is no good reason for such a wide diver- 

 sity of opinion as obtains on -the question of black bass rods. 

 For instance : Fishing from the bank of a swift and nar- 

 row stream, wading the bars of a wide river, or fishing 

 from a boat on a quiet lake, seem in themselves apparently 

 very different processes; but in reality they are only 

 slightly different means of securing the same end — -the 

 capture of the black bass with a minnow for bait, for my 

 remarks apply only to bait fishing, and a properly con- 

 structed rod would answer in either place and fulfill either 

 condition, when accompanied by a light, freely-rendering 

 reel, together with a fine line. An artistic angler, fishing 

 for trout or black bass with the fly, would use his fly rod 

 in either place — from a boat, from the bank, or while 

 wading the stream ; he would use the same rod under any 

 and every circumstance, vherever he had room to make a 

 cast. The black bass bait fisher will in time become as 

 consistent as the fly fisher, but it will only be when he 

 adopts the proper rod, which rod I will now endeavor to 

 describe. 



I start out with the proposition that a first-class Ameri- 

 can, single-handed trout fly rod is, per se, the very perfec- 

 tion of rods and the chef'dceuvre of the rod-maker's art. 

 Such a rod for general work is about ten feet long, and is 

 made of split-bamboo, or a combination of ash and lance- 

 wood, weighing from six to eight ounces. With such a 

 rod, properly handled, either line, leader or hook may part. 



