TO CAST FLOATING FLY 63 



cast, although the typical cast and the one, by 

 the way, with which the greatest accuracy and 

 distance may be attained, is less used in dry 

 fly fishing than the horizontal; in the latter the 

 rod, in the back and forward casts, moves in a 

 plane about parallel with the water. The rea- 

 son for this preference is a very real and prac- 

 tical one although difficult to explain in de- 

 tail; the fact of the matter is, however, that 

 the horizontal cast is far more apt to cock the 

 fly to place it upon the surface of the stream 

 with its wings upright and not floating on its 

 side than is the overhead. 



The reader should carefully note the above 

 point and, wherever it may be possible, always 

 employ the horizontal cast. It would not do 

 to say that every trout would refuse to rise to 

 the fly when floating down on its side al- 

 though I have seen a statement made to that 

 effect; but with shy fish the probability of a 

 rise to the correctly cocked and floating fly is 

 greater than to the fly coming down upset. 

 Apart from the known advantage of the hori- 

 zontal cast cocking the fly is a matter quite be- 

 yond the caster's control. 



Where there is smoothly flowing water with 

 little chance of drag, and little if any wind, 

 if the fly is cast with some skill it will float 

 properly with wings upright more often than 



