210 FLY FISHING AND SPINNING 



already become a separate habit ; the difficulty then is 

 having to make a sequence of these three into the one 

 habit of casting. 



Should any cramped or stiff feeling be experienced in the 

 fingers or muscles of the arm, etc., when practising, it will, 

 if the mental process be a correct one, be due to an over- 

 application of force by those muscles in grasping the rod. 

 A child will over-exert the muscles of his thumb and fingers 

 by grasping too tightly the pen or pencil when learning to 

 write, and thus experience the same sort of cramp in his 

 forefingers or thumb. 



It is because of that most erroneous of all instructions, 

 viz., that which draws the attention of the beginner to the 

 wrist, when he is told to " carry out a delicate wrist action " 

 that work is required from a system of muscles intended, 

 developed and trained for the one purpose of preventing the 

 wrist being thus turned into a pivot, and consequently the 

 fatigue and stiffness of the muscles so frequently mentioned 

 are experienced. 



Attention should be concentrated on keeping the fore- 

 finger and the thumb to their respective work on the handle 

 of the rod, until such concentration becomes unnecessary 

 owing to the fact that " attention " has been replaced by a 

 subconscious habitual action. 



A QUOTATION 



Mr. Halford, in his latest book, continues to advocate a 

 pivotal wrist action in the backward and forward cast, and 

 he says : " I venture to suggest the best of performers do 

 practically all the work with the wrist/' and later on he 

 says : " Some few fishermen cast with an almost stiff wrist, 

 and use the forearm as the motive power. It is not a pretty 

 style, but there are undoubtedly many first-rate fishermen 

 who invariably adopt this method." 



