4 THE DRY-FLY MAN'S HANDBOOK 



and its stiffness are entirely governed by the judg- 

 ment of the operative. In an ordinary wood rod this 

 is a comparatively easy matter, because if the joint is 

 made of a diameter slightly greater than that required 

 to give the necessary flexibility to the rod it is only 

 necessary to plane it down a little to correct any excess 

 of stiffness. 



The maker of a split bamboo rod has no such means 

 of correcting an error of judgment, because he must 

 under no circumstances remove the outer skin or bark. 

 If his joint is a trifle too whippy he can possibly 

 correct this by shortening it ; but if the result of this 

 shortening is to make one joint appreciably shorter 

 than the others, the rod is not, from the view of the 

 angling public, a very saleable one. When the joints 

 of the rod are prepared, the next point is to make the 

 arrangements for fastening them together. 



There are two methods of fastening the joints of a 



„ rod together ; splicing- or fit- 



Spliced and jointed . . , ' , "=' 



j.jjjjg tmg with ferrules. Most of 



the modern dry-fly men have 

 condemned the splice. It is inconvenient when it is 

 necessary to take down a rod at frequent intervals, 

 and generally the spliced rod does not accommodate 

 itself to the variety of casts effected when fishing the 

 floating fly. 

 ^ The rod-maker is thus confronted with the necessity 



Ferrules for joints. ""^ ^"^"^ ^''^ J^'"^-'' together by 



the means of metal ferrules— 

 male and female. The old-fashioned plan was to 



