The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1888-09-13
FISHING TACKLE.
How and Where Rods, Hooks, Lines
Reels, and Floats are reManufactured.

These are the pa!my days for anglers
and for the men who sell tackle to the
hunters of fish, says the Philadelphia
Times. American angling improves
every year and the yearly sale of fish
ing tackle grows bigger, until to-day
thousands of hands are employed and
a great amount of capital used in the
manufacture of the equipments of the
piscatorial sportsman.
The grade of American fishing tackle
advances steadily, and so does the cost
in many cases, but there was little
comment when well-known poll
tician, who used to angle for minnows
in his childhood with bent pin, sugar
cord, and the branch of tree, paid
$3.50 for fishing-rod the other day
that firm on Sixth and Market streets
had made for him. 1t was one of the
best split bamboo poles that was ever
made in this city.
Few people know the time and trou-
BILE it takes to make a good bamboo
fshing-rod. The bamboo is imported
in big cargoes from Calcutta, India.
The wood has to be well-seasoned, and
for two weeks the bamboo is dried by
steam. The rod is then split into six
lengths and cut into three sections, and
again dried for two weeks. The spliced
pieces are glued together, and it stays
in the glue for a month and is then
wrapped with silk.
1t is afterward iointed with ferrules.
Then it goes through the vanishing
process and receives four coats, each
coat of varnish being given week to
dry. The pole is afterward given a
butt or handle OF ash, celluloid, or
pearl, and at the end of about three
months and when the pole has gone
through the hands of six workmen it
is finished. The rod must be plant as
a coach whip, bending from butt to
tip. Many poles are ruined in the pro-
cess of manufacture. The price of
split bamboo poles run from Sc to 500,
but poles have been known to cost al
most 5000 where the ferrules and
mountings were silver
The next best rod to the bamboo is
made of lancewood. This wood, which
is very heavy, is brought from South
America in spars. The rod-maker has
the spar sawed up. Lancewood must
have good seasoning, and frequently
half of it is Il dead loss. When the rod
has been trimmed and turned by ma
chinery it is sand-papored and cut into
three or four sections and jointed; then
it is ferruled, wrapped with silk or
linen thread, and yarGished three
times. The lancewood rods cost from
81 to $40. The cheap rods are made
of ash and other common woods, with
three joints, brass ferrules, and can be
bought as low as 81 a dozen.
Almost all the hooks used in this
country come from England, although
a factory at New Haven, Conn, is
turning out big amount of hooks.
But they cannot compare with the Eng
Esh hook. That the English fish-hook
is the best is due to the finely tempered
steel from which it is made. The Eng
lish hook won't snap off like the Amer
lean hook. There is no steel equal to
1t made in this country and it costs too
much to import the English steel and
make the hooks here for the American
market.
All the English hooks are made in
Redditch, a dirty-looking little town in
Worcestershire, just over the county
border from Birmingham. There is no
hotel in the town, which is almost hid
den in day by the smoke from the sew
en- tish-hook factories of the place.
Over nine hundred people of little
Redditch are every day kept busy max
ing tish-hooks and needles. The finely
tempered steel is run out into long
wire. Different machinery cuts and
turns the wire into fish-hooks of all
sizes and one thousand hooks are
turned out every working hour.
Limerick hooks used to be popular
with fishermen, but the old town on
Ireland's west coast is now making but
few tish-hooks for the world. The
price of some tish-hooks is bnt % cents
per thousand, while $25 has been paid
for thousand superb English hooks.
The manufacture of fishing lines is
no small industry in this country. The
best line is made of silk, oil and wrap
ped linen line come next, and there
are hundred different grades of both
the silk and linen lines. Many of the
reels are costly, but reel can be
bought for any price between 25 cents
and $50.
All the silk-worm gut used in max
ing leaders is imported from Sweden,
and the cork floats are sent here from
England. The wooden floats are made
in this country and cost about half as
much as cork tloats. The United States
manufactures all its own fishing flies,
which are made from feathers, silk.
and wool. and are shaped and hued to
represent all kinds of flying insects.
and there are dozen other things used
by anglers that keep many hands busy
making.
More fishing tackle is sold in the
United States than in any other coun-
try, and Philadelphia ranks with New
York in the making OF the nations fish
rods, fish lines, and fish flies.