8 THE TROUT ARE RISING 



would have justified any wag's grave admonition 

 that netting was not allowed in the river. Im- 

 provement came when a good friend the late 

 Mr. Charles Hughes, of Iron-Bridge, beloved 

 by everybody who knew him with his kindly 

 insistence made me realize the inwardness of the 

 game. " Let your back cast be at the back," he 

 would say. Extending the line well behind you, 

 without letting it or the gut touch the ground, 

 gives the necessary pause between the casts, makes 

 all the difference in the forward cast. Years after, 

 Mr. Hughes's sound teaching was practically con- 

 firmed one afternoon on the lawn at Surrey Lodge, 

 Denmark Hill, the hospitable home of Mr. R. B. 

 Marston, deacon of the craft and one of our 

 first authorities on fishing. In that impromptu 

 lesson I had the advantage of two teachers, for 

 an ex-president of the Fly Fishers' Club also 

 joined in sage counsel. " Keep the body still, 

 when casting," they both enjoined. The brother- 

 hood of fishing is more than a phrase : the past- 

 masters delight in giving a helping hand. Their 

 kindness to me is sincerely acknowledged. Extend 

 the line well behind you in the air, and keep the 

 body still these simple, but indispensable, rules 

 of casting are here repeated in the hope that other 

 novices will also derive pleasure and profit by 

 learning them. 



To be an expert fisherman entails the conquest 

 of a world of details, the mastery of much that 

 is acquired only through long years of practice, 

 observation, and experience. It is an apprentice- 



