128 ELEMENTS OF ANGLING. 



can only be avoided by practice. But it is also 

 possible that the fly may fall properly and lightly, 

 in which case the fish may either refuse it or take 

 it. If he refuses it, the angler should let it float 

 down a few feet belore recovering it for another 

 cast. Having recovered it, he must dry it by 

 means of some " false " casts, as they are called 

 that is to say, casts which do not touch the water, 

 but keep the line in the air. I generally make 

 from four to six of these before casting again. If, 

 on the other hand, the fish rises, the angler must 

 tighten line on him gently but firmly. Some men 

 hook their fish in such a case by simply rising from 

 their knee, which, of course, pulls the line taut. 

 Others do it by twitching the rod upwards with a 

 turn of the wrist ; personally I try to do it by a 

 movement of the forearm. 



The word "strike" is commonly used to express 

 the tightening which sends the hook home, but it is 

 a dangerous word, and leads its victims to disaster. 

 For one thing it implies haste, for another violence, 

 and neither is necessary in hooking chalk-stream 

 trout. Haste will pull the fly out of the fish's 

 mouth ; violence will leave it therein permanently 

 so far as the angler is concerned. Therefore I 

 advise the novice to expunge the word from his 

 fly-fishing vocabulary except as an academic con- 



