THE WIND CAST. 349 



Illustrations before him, let him reason. Let him in his independent 

 spirit of inquiry penetrate deeply into ultimate causes and find out 

 mentally why This or That is so. Then let him come with his rod and 

 put into practice the theories he has set up for himself by correctly 

 following this book and not hastily tire in the undertaking. It would 

 indeed be useless for a man to go to work with a feeble, irregular, 

 vacillating idea of the system and expect the attainment of excellence 

 off-hand. 



The reader is by now sufficiently at home with various systems of 

 casting to have formed for himself one particular conclusion, as most 

 Fishermen would. What is this one particular conclusion? 



That the achievement of any individual cast is an art, and from the 

 very nature of it, the achievement of the much-coveted " Spey," the 

 highest art of all -is an art endowed with an irresistible fascination 

 peculiar to itself and so enjoyable that I may leave it without further 

 comment. But in truth, the " Spey " is to fishing what words are to 

 thoughts, for without it certain waters cannot be commanded, and with- 

 out words certain thoughts cannot be expressed. To sum up. What is 

 the chief end of the system ? 



The " Spey " system's chief end may be briefly put thus : That men 

 who are practically conversant with all the circumstances which render 

 the cast necessary, and with all the various ways of making it, are so far 

 removed from the struggling rank and file, as to frequently meet with the 

 highest success on pools which, to others, are positively unfishable. 



THE WIND CAST. 



In all sport the great secret is to know beforehand what one really 

 wants to accomplish, and then look sharp in making the most of one's 

 time, place, and opportunity. Time and tide wait for no man. Neither 

 will a nice porter-coloured water, when the bailiff draws a long face and 

 says : 



" Oh, lud, lud, this wind ! or she'd no fush that bad the morn, sir." 

 And here it is indispensable for the man who has the laudable 

 intention of distancing friendly (or unfriendly) competitors, to bear in 

 mind that certain ideas plausible fallacies, I call them which have 



