SECRETS OF THE SALMON 



in the illustration and no one can do it every time, 

 but practice will enable a good angler to do it 

 very often. I usually let the line shoot through 

 the guides and check it suddenly when the fly is 

 well above the water, this will make a good curl 

 cast very often. Another way is to cast a little 

 sidewise and check the cast in the air with the rod. 

 Each angler must work this out for himself as 

 each has his own cast and it is hard to teach one 

 person's mannerisms to another. No one can hope 

 to be successful in dry-fly fishing under hard con- 

 ditions until he has thoroughly mastered the casts 

 and can make them up to seventy feet distance at 

 least. 



That there is some danger of getting into diffi- 

 culties with light tackle is evidenced by the follow- 

 ing story. Fortunately this does not happen very 

 often. 



One day in the Forks Pool on the Upsalquitch, 

 there were a number of salmon rising in deep water 

 just at the end of the swift current. One would 

 come out every few minutes, and they all seemed 

 to be good sized fish. I cast for them with a 

 wet fly in every conceivable way but could not 

 get a single rise. It happened that I had a dry 

 fly on a four-ounce trout-rod which I had been 



[ HO ] 



