ROD & CREEL 35 



ordinary "jam knot," as shown in the chapter on "knots" is 

 quite easy and perfectly satisfactory for trout. 



For your droppers all you have to do is tie on a piece of 

 spare gut in the way also shown in the chapter on knots. 



Casting a Fly. Having secured a complete outfit at consider- 

 able cost, you will probably be told various yarns of small boys 

 with poles for rods and string for line and chunks of meat for 

 bait, pulling out enormous trout under the noses of perfectly 

 equipped men who have been fishing all day without a single 

 fish going in to their baskets. ' The last yarn I heard of this sort 

 was particularly good and is as follows : The usual incident had 

 happened. The perfectly equipped man had fished all day with- 

 out success when the small boy arrived with the usual tackle and 

 immediately landed the usual monster trout. Whereupon the 

 man walked over to the boy and said something. The boy went 

 home and showed the fish to his mother who remarked, "What a 

 splendid trout." "Oh no," said the boy, "that's not a trout, 

 that's a 'limit,' at any rate a swell I saw fishing down by the 

 stream said it was a 'perfect limit.' 



Such yarns are very amusing and may sometimes have hap- 

 pened, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule that the 

 skilled man w r ith good tools will beat others ninety times out of 

 a hundred. So do not be led astray, get a good outfit and learn 

 to cast well. Perhaps the following instructions will help you. 



First of all draw off from the reel an amount of line about 

 twice the length of the rod. Then holding the end of the line (it 

 is better to start without a cast or fly) in the left hand wave the 

 rod gently backwards and forwards until you get enough momen- 

 tum to carry the line, then release the line and let it go out well 

 behind you, then with a forward movement drive the line straight 

 out in front of you. 



In making a second cast three distinct movements are neces- 

 sary. First raise the point of the rod so that you have as much 

 line clear of the water as possible. Second, a backward lift with 

 a distinct pause at the end of it to allow the line to straighten. 

 Third, the forward movement when the rod is driven forward 

 with just enough force to carry the line out to its full length. 



In making the second movement the rod should not go back 

 to an angle of more than 45 degrees to the body and, unless you 

 want your line to crack like a whip with loss of your flies, make 

 the pause distinct. In addition you must incline the rod slightly 

 to the right and not straight up in the air. 



In making the forward movement the rod is at first inclined 

 slightly to the left so as to continue the curve commenced on the 

 backward movement, then driven down until it comes to about 

 the horizontal, but on no account any lower. Also endeavour to 

 have vour line extended to its full limit a foot or so above the 



