FLY-FISHING FOR TROUT 83 



sheet of tin or thin brass (the latter is best), just 

 as shown, get your hardware merchant, or do it 

 yourself, to cut out and file true the tapering space 

 between the two outer lines, leaving it exactly as 

 shown at Fig. 34, with the space cut out. Now 

 you have the plan of your rod and a gauge to 

 guide you in tapering it as you plane and work 

 the wood into shape. For example, say you are 

 working on the tip joint of your rod, and you want 

 to know how thick it should be seven inches from 

 the extreme tip. You just place it in the slit, and 

 if it fits closely half-way between o and 14", it is 

 right ; for the diagram is divided into eight sec- 

 tions of fourteen inches, and seven inches are half 

 of each section. 



(Before reading farther, go over the above again, 

 until you fully understand the whole thing. It is 

 perfectly simple, if. you once grasp it, and is indis- 

 pensable for you to know about.) 



The tools required are neither costly nor hard 

 to procure. A good plane, a good wood file ; a 

 piece of old saw steel, some broken glass and 

 sandpaper, and a jackknife and gimlet are really 

 all you want with which to make your first fly-rod. 

 I made mine with just those tools, and no more. 



