Chapter II: Preface: We sing the song of the Split-Bamboo

The author’s previous book, _Streamcraft_, deals mainly with actual streamside technic--the selection, care, rigging, and use of the rod; with the choosing of lures, natural and artificial, and their manipulation; and with fly-tying. Its contents, presented in a pocket form, will adapt it for a ready-reference companion on fishing expeditions and even when actually engaged on the water in the quest of the finny game. It comprises much data correlated from many sources, though always authoritative. But nowhere else, to his knowledge, may guidance be found for the construction of the Split-Bamboo Rod equally comprehensive and detailed as in the pages that follow. This has been preceded by a dissertation on “The Joys of Angling,” and there has been appended some information on “Cultivating Silkworm-Gut at Home,” and some suggestions on “Landing-Nets and Other Equipment,” and for “The Angler’s Camp.” The former treatise is largely a working manual for the open season and the stream; this is more a book for Winter evenings and the fireside, and for the workshop.

The sportsman’s transcendent implements are his rod and his gun. Compared with the glut of “gun-dope”--data on models, actions, bores, sights, gauges, shells, ballistics, etc.--constantly appearing in the outdoor journals and in book form for the consumption of the followers of Nimrod, there is a dearth of readily-available and plain technical information relating to the fishing-rod. While it might be urged that comparatively but few anglers would care to undertake the manufacture of this instrument in its glorified form, it requires little argument to convince anyone that fishermen in general, whether especially addicted either to fresh or salt water, love to tinker with their tackle; and no argument at all to elucidate that a treatise dealing with construction must perforce include full directions for all rod renovation and repairs. He that can make a rod certainly can fix one. Further, we admit the temerity to trust that this book will appreciably stimulate an increase in the number of those who will be emboldened to essay the “whole trick.”

Building a split-bamboo rod is an operation, and we have explained our technic with the same conscientious care that we would observe in delineating the consecutive details of a surgical operation; for it is a matter of curious comment that amongst all we have read of definite instruction in this art, we never received any help from such sources in overcoming those particular difficulties in handling and working bamboo which at first gave us the most trouble; perversely, as it seemed--albeit including much of interest and of value--these authorities told us everything except what _we_ most needed to know for perfect success, and at just such critical places they left us stranded. We earnestly hope to succeed here in obviating a like criticism.

While some of the subjects discussed in these volumes have been dealt with much more exhaustively in various other and ofttimes sumptuous and expensive treatises--many of them of foreign authorship--it has been the present writer’s ambition to condense between the two pairs of covers more information than hitherto has appeared within the same extent of text, of essential, practical interest to the American fresh-water fisherman, and to the average type of enthusiastic American trout-fisherman of today in particular; and at the same time not without some flavor of the delightful literary, esthetic, and what may be termed the Nature sides of angling, which have inseparably been associated with the sport from the beginning. In this way it is hoped that the novice may easily attain an adequate idea of the comprehensive scope of his artful recreation, while our efforts shall not prove without interest even to those who have a more familiar acquaintance with the “tight line.”

With appreciation we acknowledge our indebtedness to Mr. Edwin T. Whiffen of New Rochelle, N. Y., and to the _Forest and Stream_ magazine, for the use of Mr. Whiffen’s delightful bit of natural history comprised in Chapter XI.

That “good luck” in abundant measure may attend the reader, is the greeting of

A BROTHER ANGLER

Yonkers, N. Y., _Winter, 1919–20_

CONTENTS

Dedication iii

Foreword, by Henry van Dyke v

Preface vii

I The Joys of Angling 3

ROD-MAKING:

II Bamboo as a Rod Material 35

III Splitting Out, Straightening, and
Assembling the Strips 49

IV Planing the Strips 69

V Rod Tapers and Rod Plotting 91

VI Gluing Up 117

VII Ferrules and Their Fitting;
One-Piece and Spliced Rods 133

VIII Windings and Guides 151

IX Handgrasp and Reelseat 177

X Varnishing and Finishing 191

XI Cultivating Silkworm-Gut at Home,
by Edwin T. Whiffen 199

XII Landing-Nets and Other Equipment 233

XIII The Angler’s Camp 249

THE JOYS OF ANGLING

THE IDYL OF THE
SPLIT-BAMBOO