CHANGING MODE OF CASTING 209 



When the wind is blowing across, it will be 

 found ever the better plan to cast into it. The 

 lower the cast is made, the better. The line 

 should be cut up into and, as it were, under the 

 wind ; the fly will fall much more lightly thus 

 cast, and by keeping the rod low the full force 

 of the wind is not felt, by reason of the protection 

 afforded by the banks. 



The following is, perhaps, worth knowing. It 

 often happens that a rising fish will not take a fly, 

 though time after time the latter has been cast 

 apparently truly over it. The artificial may be 

 the best of its kind, and the fish may be sucking 

 down the natural flies one after the other, yet, so 

 surely as the furred and feathered imitation pre- 

 sents itself, it is allowed to pass by unheeded. 

 Now, it may be that the cast has hitherto been 

 made overhead, or from the right side ; let the 

 fisherman but reverse the operation, and cast from 

 the left side make the cast back-handed and 

 he will probably catch that fish. If I were asked 

 why or how this should be so, I can only reply, ' I 

 don't know, unless it be that, whereas in the 

 former style of casting the foot-links of the gut 

 bagged over the fish, and so in a measure covered 

 the fly, being drawn askew by some unseen pecu- 

 liarity in the current, in the back-handed cast 

 this tendency was rectified, and the fly floated 

 truly and naturally. Anyhow, it is a plan worth 



