CHOICE AND USE OF FLY-ROD 53 



rods and other tackle which you know are beyond 

 criticism. That trout and other game fishes may 

 be taken on cheap tackle is quite true. It is also 

 true that good tackle, for its own sake, is assuredly 

 worth while. 



The use of the rod in casting can best be learned 

 at the stream-side as distinguished from the library. 

 Any old hand can very quickly show you , 

 how much you know in regard to this 

 that is, if you are willing to learn. But be careful 

 about choosing your tutor. Not every man who wears 

 a halo of gaudy trout flies on his hat-band is a fly-fish- 

 erman; in fact, very few of them are. Pretty nearly 

 every man who ever caught a trout " knows all about 

 fly-fishing " but, strangely enough, prefers to use bait ; 

 or, quite possibly, in fact rather more possibly, uses 

 bait and, for exclusively conversational purposes, pre- 

 fers to use flies. Needless to say, this sort of fly-fish- 

 erman will not make a very profitable or efficient 

 coach. In a way it is a simple matter, casting a fly; 

 but it's one of the things which are well worth while 

 doing " right " and that is not so simple. 



In default of personal coaching, however, the follow- 

 ing suggestions concerning how to cast with the fly- 

 rod may be of advantage. Fly-casting is a matter of 

 two motions, the back cast and the forward cast. 

 It is also a matter of the wrist not a straight-arm 

 shoulder-swing and that brings us to the first es- 

 sential advice. The proper way to hold the rod is to 



