92 LETTERS TO YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



Now, the difference between the correct throw for sending 

 out the line, as it should go, with the gut cast at the end of it 

 and for propelling it without this necessary tail-piece is a 

 difference so subtle that I despair of conveying it to you in any 

 written form. It is all a matter of " feel," of timing, of 

 experience experience which can only be acquired after 

 many failures, experience which is never so perfectly acquired 

 that a man can say to himself : "I am certain of being able to 

 make an absolutely faultless cast." No man acquires this 

 certainty, and therein consists part, and large part, of the 

 charm of the sport, and of that " glorious uncertainty " 

 about which the angler makes his boast. The straight out- 

 going of the line with gut cast attached is slightly more 

 difficult to achieve with, than it was without, this attachment. 

 The timing has to be rather more delicate and nice ; probably 

 the pause at the top has to be a little lengthened. It is hard 

 to say more than this ; and, saying this, I have said little. 

 I can but indicate to you ; can but give you hints. I must 

 ask you to bring your brains to the useful development of 

 these hints. Remember the gillie's words to the Scottish 

 professor which I quoted in my last : " It's verra easy 

 teaching Greek and Latin ; it tak's a heid to thraw a flee." 

 You must use your head in order to help me to help you. 



I have written of the straight-out throwing of the fly 

 because in this consists really the initial difficulty. Over- 

 come this and you have solved the hardest crux of the problem ; 

 but you have not thereby solved the whole of it. I am 

 proposing now that we shall quit the lawn and shall betake 

 ourselves to the nearest piece of water. It makes no matter, 

 for our purpose, whether it be a stream in course or a placid 

 pond. The former is the better, because it will aid you in 

 carrying out the line and making easier its recovery for a 

 fresh throw. But the latter will serve. It will serve you in 

 one particular for which the lawn was not adequate. On 

 the lawn you could see whether your line went out straightly. 

 Here, for the first time, you are able to see whether it is 

 alighting delicately. 



A certain misapprehension has arisen in the mind of 

 many a learner out of a misconstruing of this familiar piece 

 of instruction anent the delicate alighting of the line. I have 



