162 THE UNDER-HAND CAST.. 



a fly in it. Here, however, * recubans sub tegmine,' the 

 largest trout lie, and from being in quarters which are not 

 invaded without risk to the tackle by unskilful prac- 

 titioners, they get but little fished, and are consequently 

 much freer and bolder risers when you do get a fly neatly 

 over them. I saw this very clearly exemplified last season ; 

 over a mill-head which I used to fish two or three trees 

 hung, making that particular locality by no means easy 

 to fish ; yet if I ever got hold of a fish in the whole mill- 

 head it was there. I could always rise a fish there when 

 I could not move one anywhere else in the head, and 

 therefore it is as well that the angler should take some 

 trouble to learn how to fish such a spot, for nothing pays 

 better. Now, suppose the branches to be some five feet 

 only above the surface of the stream, and the banks well 

 bushed. The angler must stoop down on one knee, extend 

 the rod over the water parallel to it, some eighteen 

 inches above it probably he will find it easier to fish it 

 down-stream if at all rapid and letting a line out about 

 half as long again as the rod, with the fingers of the hand 

 which grasped the rod turned downwards towards tlie 

 water's surface, the back of the hand being upwards 

 he must be particular about this, as the whole virtue of 

 the cast lies in the peculiar position and the reversal of 

 the hand he must twitch the line sharply off the water 

 and directly up the stream, being careful not to bring the 

 point of the rod too far round, or the fly will catch the 

 bushes on the bank on his own side, nor higher than 

 suffices to fetch the line off the water, or he will take hold 

 of the branches above it. When the line is fairly extended 

 up-stream he may make his cast by bringing his hand 

 back again over the same distance it has just travelled, 

 but as he does so he must reverse the position of the 

 fingers of his hand, these being brought upwards while 

 the back of the hand is brought under towards the water. 



