Introduction Even if you can well afford to go out and buy them there is a lot to be said for making your own fishing-rods. In the first place, if you are a normal sort of a person you will get quite a lot of enjoyment out of making them, for we all have the creative instinct to some degree, and there is always a deep satisfaction in making something from nothing, so to speak. I must have made scores of rods in any time, yet I still get a lot of pleasure out of the fashioning of an elegant fishing-rod from an unpromising assortment of raw bamboo cane. Then again, when you Gaake your rods yourself you get exactly the rods you want-or, at least, it is your own fadt if you do not. You can incorporate all the features you like and eliminate all those you do nor, for unlike the manufacturer you do not have to cater for the varying tastes of the widest passible market. You have only yourself to please Perhaps most important, however, to most of us, is the fact that you can make rods far more cheaply than you can hope to bay them in a shop. Rod-manufacturers would like zrs to believe otherwise, of course, but it is obvious that your home-made rods are b od to be cheaper. You have no profits to make, wages to pay, or overhead charges to cover, nor is exorbitant purchase-tax levied on rods you make yourself. Your only outlay is the bare cost of the raw materials. You will, of course, have to buy the few simple tools necessary if you have not already got them, but once you have acquired these you can go on making fishing-rods for the rest of your life at a mere fraction of the price you would pay for them in a shop. In trying to dissuade us from making our own rods the nu- factwrers would perhaps do better if they took their stmd on quality, rather than cost, for one must admit that the majority of home-made rods one sees at the waterside are pitifidly crude and unlikely to arouse any enthusiasm for home rod- g. The reason for this, P think, is that so many anglers just buy an assortment of canes and set about making themselves rods without first acquiring the necessary know-how.....