WHIPPING OFF FLIES. 83 



the reason why a fly is thus snapped off, you must 

 be informed of the summary of the art of throw- 

 ing; and pray understand that it is the merest 

 outhne of what I have to teach you about it. It 

 is this — in preparing to throw forward, you first 

 jerk the line behind, and then cast it forward 

 again. Now, in the throw backwards, unless the 

 point of your rod describes the half of the figure 

 of an elongated ellipsis, or, what is better for 

 a beginner, nearly a semicircle round the head ; or 

 unless time is allowed for the fly end to reach 

 behind you to its furthest stretch, when you make 

 the effort to throw the line forward — which you 

 effect by giving a sudden spring to the rod, — 

 it becomes doubled up behind in too acute a 

 bend ; and thus, when the head of the fly gets 

 to the point of the bend, from the sudden re- 

 sistance the stiff hook affords, and the brittle 

 nature of the gut, away the fly goes, having, as 

 you will learn hereafter, acquired a motion, or 

 force, contrary to the course you give to the line 

 at the moment of its being broken off. In the 

 " Angler s Souvenir," is an amusing specimen of 

 a conceited beginner, — a "would-be" self-taught, 

 making his first essay, and in order to avoid 

 breakages of this kind, he is pictured as laying 

 his line straight out on the ground in the con- 

 trary direction to that he wished to make his cast, 

 and then with one straight forward over-head 



G 2 



