ON ANGLING. 85 



weight is not only that this part, euphoniously known as 

 " the belly " of the line, itself will go out, if moderately well 

 cast, against a breeze, but that its weight is the efficient cause 

 of further urging out, beyond itself, the thinner section of 

 the line and the gut cast beyond that. 



Take now your borrowed rod and line at first there 

 is no need of the gut and go on the lawn with them. At 

 the very first you should, J think, borrow your friend also; 

 for without some such help it is a little difficult to see how 

 you are to induce the line to go out and away so as to put you 

 into " first position," so to say, for a cast. Then, when your 

 friend has pulled you out, say, twelve yards of line, and they 

 lie before you on the grass, you are at what we may call the 

 " Ready." 



The first part of the cast, which you are now to commence, 

 will be in the nature of a lift, to raise a portion of the line. 

 Do this, if you please, with elbow down and tolerably close 

 in against the side, and do it with a stiff wrist. Remember, 

 particularly, throughout the cast the stiff wrist. I write 

 " particularly " because this useful tenseness of wrist is so 

 often forgotten. All the work is to be from the elbow joint. 

 The grip of the hand on the rod butt, which you will grasp 

 a little above the reel, should be firm. As for the exact mode 

 of disposing each finger in this grip, the practice of fine anglers 

 differs. Perhaps the master craftsman of them all, the late 

 G. S. Marryat, used to fish with the forefinger straight along 

 the rod. It is an impossible mode for most men, and the 

 usual way is with the thumb, not the forefinger, straight up 

 along the rod and with the knuckles downward. 



The first movement up of the rod has been in the nature 

 of a lift to take some of the line and the heaviest portion 

 of it off the lawn, which, for the moment, does duty for 

 the water. The next part of the movement is in the nature 

 of a true cast or throw a throw of the rod backwards 

 over your right shoulder. You, of course, are a right- 

 handed man. For a left-hander all this advice would 

 be given conversely. You wish to throw the line backwards 

 and upwards, but bear in mind all the while what the agency 

 is exactly which is so to cast it. You, with your muscle, 

 are not touching the line. It is the rod, the flexible spring 



