SWITCHING. 319 



his hands well up and carries the rod up to his shoulder 

 pretty smartly ; but he does not send the fly back over the 

 shoulder, but rather fetches it in towards his feet, and he 

 must take care that in doing so it does not come too high 

 above the surface of the water, or it will not catch the 

 water again at the right spot. About two or three yards 

 above him to his right hand, and a little in front of him, 

 the fly must touch the water, but must go no farther. This 

 action brings the line into the form of a great bow or arc, 

 to which the rod is the chord. The instant the fly touches 

 the water (and the angler must keep his eye upon it, for 

 if it misses it and touches the bank at all he must not 

 make his cast), a sharp downward turn and cut is made, 

 not towards the spot you wish the line to go to, but to 

 establish a sort of centrifugal action (somewhat after the 

 fashion that a juggler spins a hat or plate, with a stick), 

 and the line flies towards the point required ; in fact, the 

 cast is the result of the laws of centrifugal force, the line 

 forms the tangent to an arc of a circle described sharply 

 with the rod-point, and the angle at which the tangent 

 flies off is controlled by the practice and experience of 

 the angler. It is not an easy cast to make, and requires 

 a good deal of practice. It is hardly possible to describe 

 it, and must be seen and studied to be understood clearly. 

 Fig. 15, Plate XIV., will show the position of the line and 

 the attitude of the fisherman at the most critical moment 

 of the cast. 



It is impossible to lay down any rule as to how a salmon 

 cast should be fished, further than that it should be fished 

 in the way which suits it best, and this the old salmon- 

 fisher will know from long experience, and the young one 

 from his attendant, who knows the cast and its peculiari- 

 ties well, and without whom the tyro will be very foolish 

 to try his luck. Some people who know very little of 

 salmon-fishing lay down diagrams of instructions, &c., 



