no LETTERS TO YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



are commonly larger and more wary, so that you seldom fish 

 for one which you have not seen rising. 



Now, besides these currents down which the fly are apt 

 to be carried and which, therefore, the fly-feeding trout will 

 frequent, there is always a chance of insect diet below over- 

 hanging trees and bushes. It is likely that some of the 

 best trout in the river will have their haunts in these pleasant 

 and profitable places, fiercely ejecting from them any visitors 

 of their own kind which come in the hope of a share in their 

 banquet. I need hardly point out to you the value of the 

 horizontal cast in placing your fly deftly over trout lying 

 in these overhung shelters. Just another word or two about 

 the places where trout are apt to lie, and then I want to 

 refer back for a moment to this matter of the horizontal cast ; 

 for, however it may be on the wet -fly streams, you will do little 

 good as a dry-fly fisher until you acquire some of its finer 

 subtleties. Likely quarters, then, for feeding or expectant 

 trout to take up, besides those I have hinted at, are the 

 mouths of rivulets and subsidiary feeders of the main river. 

 Any big stone in the water is tolerably sure to have a fish 

 with his haunt behind it. They will often lie in wait at the 

 top of a " glide," just where the bustling part of the stream 

 begins to smooth off into a glassy surface. And an especially 

 favourite place is that where two currents, after going in 

 divided courses awhile, come together and flow down 

 as one. 



Referring back now to that horizontal cast, which you 

 will soon find yourself using in almost constant preference to 

 the vertical, it is scarcely needful for me to say that what I 

 wrote about some of the heavier portion of the line going 

 into the water with a splash applies to the vertical cast solely, 

 and not to the horizontal at all. In the horizontal all falls 

 lightly, or should do so. Moreover, I am far from saying 

 that every fine caster whom you may watch will send any part 

 of his line thus splashing even in the vertical throw. The 

 methods of the very best casters vary greatly. The difference 

 is well emphasised by Mr. Halford, in Vol. I of the Fishing 

 Volumes of the Country Life Library of Sport. ■ He there 

 points out how entirely different are the respective methods 

 of Mr. Marryatt and of Mr. Valentine Corric ; yet both were 



