214 Fly-rods and Fly-tackle. 



solid handle, as light or lighter than a split-bamboo of 

 equal length, with its hollow half-cedar gripe. To save 

 weight, or, what is equivalent, leverage against the an- 

 gler, by shortening the rod as far as is consistent with 

 perhaps a little more than a fair working cast, is wise. 

 For who wishes to lug useless weight all day long to no 

 good purpose ; the same end, and with far less incon- 

 venience, would be accomplished by filling the pockets 

 with stones. Ten feet, or ten feet six inches, I believe 

 to be quite sufficient length to give to any single-handed 

 fly-rod. With this, ordinary skill can handle sixty feet 

 of line at a pinch; and we all know that in actual fishing 

 nine hundred and ninety casts out of a thousand will 

 fall within forty measured feet. When you read or 

 hear (as you have or will) of an angler wading down 

 stream, or sitting in a boat, and casting seventy feet as 

 a mere matter of course, and not at all aside from his 

 usual practice, you may feel confident those feet were 

 of other than the English standard. 



The skilled angler limits his cast by preference to that 

 distance, within which he can without effort deliver a 

 fair straight line and a light fly. It is only he who oc- 

 cupies debatable ground, who while not quite a green- 

 horn is yet by no means an angler, whom you will see, 

 in boat or on stream, needlessly swishing his sixty or 

 seventy feet of line. Better by far to cast fifty feet 

 clean and clear, than to boggle about at sixty or sixty- 

 five, and then by some happy combination of circum- 

 stances, and after repeated effort, at last reach even 

 eighty. With excellent and protracted opportunity to 

 observe many very skilful anglers, I cannot recall one 

 single instance of a cast in actual fishing that would ex- 

 ceed sixty-five measured feet. Not that many of these 



