Methods and Equipment 341 



cast " to which is attached a history which will 

 be given briefly. 



Up in Boone County, New York, there was a 

 fine trout stream and a club of anglers. Its 

 president was D. W. Cross of Cleveland, Ohio, 

 now deceased. The writer was his guest at 

 the club, and we fished always in company, often 

 side by side, for the stream was broad. One 

 day, on the brook, he said to me: — 



" I know of but one man who makes the grass- 

 hopper cast as well as you do, and he is my 

 brother." 



" What do you mean } What is a grasshopper 

 cast ? " was the reply. 



" Why, my good fellow, don't you know .? there, 

 you have just made one ! " 



Now I had been making the cast for twenty 

 years, and was ignorant of the name and method 

 of making it, but not of its merits; for it had 

 taken many a hefty black bass for me years 

 before out of the Schuylkill River. I can tell 

 you what it is, not how to make it ; it is beyond 

 analysis and my power of description. It is a 

 long throw, from the angler's standpoint, between 

 fifty and sixty feet, and when the forward cast is 

 made, the line first strikes the water at the spot 



