76 FLY FISHING FOR TROUT. 



Derbyshire trout, was got over by keeping the 

 line off the water. Every writer treats this as 

 the one essential to correct casting. Be sure 

 that your fly fall first on the water, if the line 

 fall first it scareth the fish, therefore draw it 

 back and cast again, says Venables. All say 

 the same. Now to do this a light wind behind 

 you was necessary : in a calm it is possible, but 

 harder : in a head wind the line hits the water 

 first or it is blown back : with a gale behind, 

 the line must be drowned or it is blown off the 

 water. 



We can now figure their fishing, and in 

 expert hands it was skilful and effective. In 

 upstream fishing where practised the fisherman 

 cast straight above him with a short line. But 

 downstream fishing was more common, a good 

 deal of it, no doubt, of the crude type which 

 still survives, a methodical and unimaginative 

 searching of the water such as still obtains in 

 salmon fishing. Probably this would have 

 filled a basket on most waters. But on shy 

 rivers or in skilled hands the system permitted 

 of a more delicate and deadly practice : the cast 

 was made with the rod point well up, the fly 

 with a link or two of the finest part of the cast 

 alone fell on the water, then the hand was 

 lowered and the fly was floated lightly and with 

 little drag over the fish; with a long slender 

 rod, a delicate hand and a line light and at the 

 same time with a bulk on which the wind could 

 act, the fisherman, standing right back in the 



