ON ANGLING, 103 



by far the greater part of any self-respecting angler's life, 

 and on the dry fly rivers we may say that it is the only way. 

 Soon you must be learning to make your approaches to the 

 fish, whether you are wading or are on the dry land, up- 

 stream, casting beyond him and letting the fly come floating 

 down over his head towards you. One difference which this 

 way makes, in comparison with the other, is the obvious 

 difference that whereas, on that other plan, the flies were 

 carried away from you by the current, on this they are borne 

 towards you. That means, among other things, that they will 

 be " fishing," as we call it — that is to say, floating in such 

 manner and with such little encumbrance of gut attachment 

 circling about them that it is possible they may attract the 

 favourable notice of a trout — for a shorter span of both time 

 and space than when you were casting down-stream. They 

 will come hurrying towards you. And this implies again 

 that you must be ready to pluck them off the water, by 

 means of that lift of the rod followed by that flick which I 

 tried to explain to you in my first epistle, before they have 

 floated very far down. I am speaking now of a cast made 

 straight above you when you are wading in the stream. 

 As the flics come down you should gather in line with your 

 left hand, so as to prevent too much slack line intervening 

 between the rod's top and the fly. If you do allow too much 

 of this slack, the result will be that if a trout takes the fly, 

 you cannot strike him. That lift of the wrist so difficult to 

 describe will expend its effect on the slack, and before that 

 is straightened the fish, finding that the fly " does not answer 

 his purpose, will spit it out before it has answered yours." 

 If, on the other hand, you are casting " across and up " at, 

 say, an angle of forty-five degrees to the direction of the 

 current, there is no reason why you should not, if you choose, 

 let the flies float down below you before recovering them for 

 the next cast. They may thus catch an odd fish ; but he 

 must really be a very odd one indeed if he is to take the fly 

 while your person, waving the rod like a coachman's whip, 

 must be plainly presented to his astonished gaze. In the 

 long run you will save time, and will cover more trout that 

 are at all likely to come to the fly, by taking it off the water 

 as soon as it has gone past the place where you know, or 



