154 FLY FISHING AND SPINNING 



In order that you may grasp clearly the kind of action 

 required for this back cast, you should imagine that there is 

 a small piece of wet clay stuck rather insecurely on the top 

 of your rod, and that from the first position as shown in 

 Diagram 9, you have by a steady but increasing force to 

 switch this piece of clay off the rod top in a horizontal 

 direction behind you. 



This is exactly the kind of impulse required to extend 

 the line backward. 



Remember always that it is not violence, but vim, which 

 results in a correct cast. 



The force employed in the back stroke should be just 

 sufficient to extend the line after the backward action of 

 the rod has been arrested, and, having been thus extended 

 the line will, unless the forward cast be then made, fall 

 to the ground behind you.* 



The line should again be extended on the lawn and the 

 whole of this practice repeated until you are satisfied that 

 you are able to make the back cast correctly. 



If you now wish to make the back cast without having 

 your line extended on the lawn, shorten it, leaving only 

 about twenty feet beyond the top ring of your rod. Get 

 into the first position again, but holding the line in your 

 left hand, the rod pointing just above the horizon (see 

 page 159), extend your right hand and at the same time 

 lift it and the point of the rod together, letting go the line, 

 and as it falls from you in a circular outward sweep, make 



* You may find your line during the back cast coming into collision with 

 your rod, and if this bothers you, you may make a slight curve with the rod to 

 one side or the other during the back stroke, thus keeping the rod clear of the 

 line in its backward course. But this collision can only be due either to a 

 faulty back stroke, or from using too long a line. If a correct motion of the 

 back cast is made when using a medium length of line, it will lift the line 

 above the level of the top of the rod as the line travels backward. 



If the line be a long one, some of it may in its backward journey by the 

 action of gravity travel below the top of the rod, and if brought back in the 

 same plane may collide with it. 



