FLY CASTING FOR SALMON. 



BY 



GEORGE DAWSON. 



There is no essential difference between trout and 

 salmon casting. The same general principles apply to 

 both, and it only requires the careful amplication of the 

 skill attained in the one to become equally expert in 

 the other. The difference is simply the difference in 

 weight. A twelve-foot trout rod weighs, say, eight 

 ounces, and an eighteen-foot salmon rod, with reel, 

 weighs two or three times as much. The one can be 

 manipulated with one hand ; the other requires both. 

 With the one you ordinarily cast forty or fifty feet ; 

 with the other sixty or eighty ; and with rods equally 

 approximating perfection, it is as easy to cast the eighty 

 feet with the one as the forty feet with the other. I do 

 not mean to say that no more muscular exertion is re- 

 quired in the one case than in the other, but simply 

 that w T ith such slight effort as is necessary with either, 

 it is as easy to place your fly where you wish it with 

 the one rod as with the other. No great muscular ex- 

 ertion is necessary to cast with either. Indeed, the 

 chief difficulty in casting is to get rid of the idea that 

 a great deal of muscular effort is necessary to get out a 



