60 SALMON FISHING 



pressure it will stand, if the pressure be steady, is 

 enormous. If it is a bad one, the sooner it is 

 destroyed the better. By luck rather than by good 

 guiding, it may land a fish now and then ; but on 

 the whole it will be a cause of sorrow and an 

 encouragement to bad style. 



If this analysis of the dynamics of the rod be 

 sound, there is no need to adorn these pages with 

 figures of an expert caught by the camera in various 

 stages of his action by the waterside. When once 

 the essential principles are understood and adopted, 

 overhead cast, loop cast, and so on, will really come 

 by nature. There is no mystery about them. They 

 are not like figures in a dance, which are artful 

 actions, to be acquired only through teaching ; they 

 come as naturally as throwing stones. Even the 

 " Spey cast " is not excluded from this general 

 assertion. Wandering along by the edge of a river, 

 looking for rises, you suddenly come upon an oppor- 

 tunity. A salmon has shown himself. The bank 

 behind you, however, is very high ; or there is a tree 

 too near. What are you to do ? If you cast in 

 the ordinary way, you will be caught up by the 

 bank or the tree. How is the fly to be dropped 

 over the fish ? Your line is out and trailing down- 

 stream. Why, all you have to do is to raise the rod, 

 let it lie back a little over your head or shoulder, 

 and switch it forward. The impulse given to the 

 part of the line which is out of the water will recover 

 the cast and toss it across-stream. This is a readily 

 obvious adaptation of means to end. It is not 



