FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 



the handle towards your right hand, and you cast with it also above, not 

 under, the rod. Having the reel on the rod, and the line wound up until 

 the bait hangs a foot or so from the rod point, you grasp the handle below 

 the reel so that the thumb can rest on a bar of the reel and touch the line 

 wound on to it (there should only be just room on the cork handle for the 

 grasp behind the reel), you then turn your arm and hand up and over 

 your right shoulder, much as if you were about to throw a stone 

 or drop a golf ball behind you. This should extend the rod horizontally 

 behind you — ^if you remiember, as a boy, casting a bit of clay, or a small 

 potato, stuck on to the end of a switch you will get the idea of the over- 

 head single -hand cast at once. Just as you make the forward movement, 

 as with the switch, you drop the point of the rod a little towards the ground 

 behind to get a swing on the bait, and then bring it smartly straight over 

 your shoulder, and, at the moment you feel the full pull of the weight against 

 the rod, you lift the thumb off the line on the reel, and, as the reel is perfectly 

 free -running, it turns round with great rapidity in answer to the pull 

 of the weight, and the latter draws the line after it through the air. By 

 just skidding the line under your thumb, by gently pressing it, you prevent 

 it turning faster than the weight can pull the line through the rings and, 

 as I said before, to stop the reel you merely press the thumb down hard 

 on the revolving spindle and line. 



An important point to remember in making the cast is to stop the for- 

 ward movement of the rod soon after it has passed overhead, and not to let 

 it drop down horizontally in front of you, but to keep it steadily up at an 

 angle of about 45 degrees. Suppose you were standing with the rod sideways 

 to a big clock dial, with your left hand side towards it and your shoulders 

 reaching to about the centre of the dial, then you might imagine your rod was 

 the long hand of the clock, then you will see in a moment that when held 

 horizontally behind you the rod points to 9 o'clock, you drop it gently to 

 8 o'clock, and then bring it quickly and steadily over, increasing the pace 

 until it points to 2 o'clock, lifting the thumb to release the line between 

 12 and 2, and then holding the rod steady at 2, while the line flies out 

 and you are controlling the reel with the gentle pressure of the thumb. 

 If you drop the point of the rod, while the line is being drawn off by the 

 bait, you break the continuity of the pull, and in that second, or fraction 

 of a second, because it is not being pulled as it comes off the reel, it does 

 not come off the reel, but goes round with it, and then your cast is pulled 

 up suddenly and spoiled by an overrun. Towards the end of the cast, 

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