30 FLIES AND FLY FISHING. 



anyone who has acquired a bad form of casting to break 

 himself of it ; but there is one way it can be done to a 

 certainty, have your right arm fastened down to your 

 body, with a strap just above the elbow, and practice 

 fishing thus, you will soon get into the way of casting 

 only with your wrist. A much better and longer line can 

 be thrown with the wrist, and with hardly any exertion, 

 than by throwing your whole body into the rod, as some 

 men seem to do. When using the double-handed rod 

 for salmon, &c., although you give a sweep of the rod 

 with both arms, still the force that propels the ]mefonvard 

 should come principally from the wrists. The length of 

 line that can be cast depends, in some measure, on the 

 strength of the wrist casting it. As a rule, more line 

 should not be cast than can be properly fished, that is, you 

 should not have so much line on the water as to 

 materially interfere with your strike. When using a 

 twelve foot rod, anything over fifteen or sixteen yards, 

 counting of course from the top of the rod to the leading 

 fly, is a long line to fish, but always, if you can cover a 

 good rise or a very likely spot only with a very long line, 

 do so by all means, even if you cannot fish it quite 

 properly. The great maxim in fly fishing should be> 

 cover a rising fish, or very likely piece of water somehow 



