METHODS OF CASTING A SALMON FLY 323 



right hand cast, the hands merely changing their places 

 on the rod. 



Assuming that practice is now taking place over still 

 or running water, the point of the rod should be lowered 

 well toward the water prior to making the back stroke ; 

 the current will then take out, or the fisherman may take in, 

 any slack line, and as the rod is steadily raised accelerando 

 the line will rise well to the surface until the fly be just about 

 to leave the water, when the action is ended by a quickening 

 backward switch, the force applied to the rod being a pull 

 which increases in strength as the rod goes back, culminating 

 as the butt of the rod reaches an angle of twenty-two 

 degrees behind the vertical. 



The use of the double-handed trout and salmon rod is 

 nearly always confined to the wet fly method of fishing. 

 The fly or flies are mostly fished across and down stream, 

 and are generally thrown to an angle of about sixty degrees 

 across the direction in which the current is flowing. The 

 fly or flies are sunk below the water, and drift down stream 

 round towards a point immediately below the fisherman, 

 his object being to make his lure work in such a manner as 

 to be easily seen, and to vary the appearance it presents to 

 the fish. 



THE WYE CAST. 



This cast for the salmon rod has already been described in 

 Chapter XV., and for the single-handed rod in Chapter X. 



THE SIDE CAST OF THE SALMON ROD 



The movements and velocities of the salmon rod, when 

 making the side cast, are precisely similar to those of the 

 trout rod described in Chapter X., and are an exact 

 replica of the overhead salmon cast made in the horizontal 

 instead of the vertical plane. 



