THE TWO-HANDED ROD 211 



Natural dangers, such as trees, bushes, cliffs, etc., and 

 artificial difficulties, such as telegraph-poles, barbed 

 wire, etc., will prevent at times not only the overhead 

 cast from being performed, but also nearly every 

 variation of the curved cast. Yet there will always 

 be one variation at least which can be adopted in order 

 to bring your line sufficiently back to be easily and 

 accurately cast forward. The more completely the 

 line can be thus brought back, the better the result in 

 the forward cast. There is no place from which a 

 fisherman cannot cast his line so long as he can bring 

 his rod either upright or back sideways at least so 

 far as the edge of the water by which he stands, and 

 so that, between his rod and the object, a clear path 

 is open for his line in its forward movement. 



The axioms and principles of casting with a two- 

 handed rod are identical with those which I have 

 dealt with under the head of " Trout Fly Casting," 

 the difference between the two being that, instead of 

 the elbow acting as the pivot of the backward and 

 forward cast, as in the single-handed rod, the pivot of 

 the double-handed rod is situated at a point midway 

 between the two hands, and so long as this point of 

 the rod is maintained as the pivot, the hands can be 

 relatively raised or lowered in any direction in the 

 plane or curve taken by the rod in the various casts 

 to which I shall allude (see Diagram 14). 



142 



