FLY-CASTING AND FLY-FISHING 65 



move up slowly and quietly, or, if necessary, get out of 

 the stream and still-hunt your trout from the bank. A 

 hang-up with the consequent maneuvers to get free 

 always spoils sport in the immediate vicinity. 



How to Fish the Flies 



The one thing which definitely distinguishes the fly- 

 fishing beginner from the fly-fishing veteran is the man- 

 ner in which the cast of flies is handled. If, with some 

 fly-fishing experience to make your judgment com- 

 petent, you follow the veteran fly-caster as he wades 

 down the stream, you will see that always the flies 

 alight where they will do the most good, that the man- 

 ner of handling the cast varies with the water and 

 other conditions, that the cast passes over every bit 

 of likely water, and that always the flies are fished with 

 malice aforethought and with little or nothing of the 

 chuck-and-chance-it about the process. 



But if you choose to share as a spectator quite the 

 best way the varied fortunes and misfortunes of the 

 fly-casting novice on the stream, you will see another 

 sort of fishing. Everything is haphazard and without 

 definite plan; good water and poor are fished out with 

 equal futility; in fact, the novice, provided he can get 

 the flies out on the water, somehow, anyhow, or any- 

 where, and again retrieve them, is satisfied that he is 

 fly-fishing and damns the stream as trout deserted when, 

 in consequence of his methods, or rather, lack of meth- 

 od, the results are nil. To put it in another way : The 

 manner in which the flies are fished distinguishes the 



