86 FLOATING FLIES 



back upon itself and the fly settles down upon 

 the surface at the end of a considerable loop of 

 line and leader. The motion of the rod should 

 be stopped only for an instant, and the rod 

 should then be carried down to its usual posi- 

 tion at the end of the forward cast, about par- 

 allel with the water. A variation of the above 

 method of casting a slack line, one which the 

 writer has found very useful at times, while 

 essentially similar to the method described, dif- 

 fers somewhat in that a loop of slack line, 

 drawn from the reel by the left hand while 

 " lengthening-out," is prematurely released, 

 when making the last forward cast, the result 

 being that the extra line does not " shoot " out 

 straight, but comes down curved and slack upon 

 the surface. To make the slack-line cast and 

 place the fly accurately as when casting to a 

 rising trout is a matter of much practice, and, 

 it may be admitted, sometimes equally a matter 

 of much good luck. 



Although the matter of striking a rising 

 trout will be treated in a subsequent chapter, it 

 should perhaps be noted here that the seasoned 

 wet fly fisherman, accustomed to fishing a fairly 

 taut line, will soon learn to strike his trout with 

 the loose line most often used in dry fly casting 

 with really fewer resultant misses than is the 



