SOME CONTROVERSIES 123 



do better is decidedly a good thing. In the old 

 days, if circumstances made upstream fishing 

 impossible, it was a very half-hearted effort that 

 I made in the other direction. Now I should be 

 just as hopeful whichever way I was casting. 



Of course there are different methods of fishing 

 downstream. You can, if you please, cause your 

 flies to behave very much as if you were fishing 

 in the other way. By casting across with a little 

 slack to your line you can cause them to float down 

 unimpeded for a few yards. I fancy this method, 

 which is well suited to big rivers and deep or difficult 

 wading, is the one that the crack downstream men 

 mostly employ. In principle there is little to 

 distinguish it from the across-and-up plan. But 

 there are other ways of getting fish. You can work 

 your droppers on the top, which is a pretty and 

 sometimes a successful art, you can let your flies 

 drag round in the stream, which rises fish well 

 enough, though they do not always get hooked so 

 surely as might be wished. You can cast your 

 flies at an angle of forty-five, as in salmon fishing, 

 and work them witli movements of the rod-top. 

 You can — if you come to a tunnel of bushes, a wide 

 bridge, or some similar otherwise inaccessible place — 

 let a lot of line out on the stream and simply wind 

 it back again, a plan which is often good for a trout 

 or two. 



