102 LETTERS TO YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



over your right shoulder. It will not make very severe 

 demand on your imagination to conceive situations such as 

 may be created by trees and bushes and the like impedimenta 

 on the river's bank, where a left-handed throw, if you could 

 accomplish it, would be the more excellent way. It is greatly 

 to be wished that you acquire ambidexterity in the cast, 

 and it is not a difficult acquirement ; nevertheless, some of 

 the very best anglers never have gained it. They make up 

 for its lack by great deftness in the back-hanpled cast with the 

 right hand, the wrist being turned as for the back-hand stroke 

 in tennis or rackets. For my own part I am hopelessly one- 

 handed — that is, right-handed — but I can cast back-handed 

 just as easily as fore-handed with my right hand, and so, 

 with a very little practice, may anyone who has played the 

 games into which the back-hand stroke enters. 



Thus far I have said nothing, so as not to bother you 

 with detail before you had conquered the essential, about the 

 mode in which you should approach the trout and the river 

 in which you expect to find him. The trout is a creature 

 endowed with quick vision at certain angles from its eye, 

 and with a very keen sensibility to vibration in the water. 

 It behoves you, therefore, approaching him and his home, 

 to keep low and to step, if you do step, with an A gag-like 

 delicacy. I write ' if you do step," because it is almost 

 more desirable that you should kneel, or should crawl. The 

 lower you can keep, even apart from any question of taking 

 cover behind bushes or rushes on the bank, the less likely 

 are the fish to see you ; and for this reason it is often best, 

 where possible, to wade in the river itself, for at least that 

 portion of your splendid person which is submerged will 

 then be hidden from the unappreciative eye of the trout. 

 Again I will ask you to view the situation for a moment 

 from his point. He is lying with head up-stream — you may 

 be quite sure of that — therefore your approaches to him are 

 most effectively made up-stream, from behind him. Just 

 at the very first essay of your angling life I counselled you 

 to a down-stream cast, because the down-flowing current 

 would then straighten for you any looping of your line, 

 but I said this out of pure charity towards your inexperience. 

 The up-stream mode is that which has to be followed during 



