F L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER 



" No, no, boys," he continued, " the whole mat- 

 ter lies in the nervy wrist movement, with the clear 

 brain and the loving heart behind it. Mendy, 

 neither you nor Gills can tell me how you give 

 that effective quivering motion to your rod. A 

 turn of the wrist, say you! Bosh! say I. Your 

 brain wills it, and the motive power goes right 

 down that good right arm of yours into the wrist, 

 and then up and out that split bamboo, through 

 each thread of your braided line, until it culmi- 

 nates in the point fly; not ending even there, I 

 sometimes think, but rather in the tough upper lip 

 of the bass, as you strike him." 



" Doc is off! Not a word,, Mendy, or else he '11 

 play this tune for an hour or two," said Gills. 



' This ' forty-five degree ' theory is all very well, 

 boys," continued the Doctor, " on a trout-stream 

 overhung with brush or forest growth; that is, if 

 the same angle of the rod is used twice the same 

 day on such water (which I doubt), where you are 

 forced to use a twenty-foot cast, and to sweep it 

 ofttimes parallel to the surface of the stream, or, 

 as I once saw a green one do, to loop your line 

 into a roll like a sailor's heaving-line, and toss it 

 into the foam of a rapid, hoping that the current 

 would land it in a pool where ' a big trout ' should 

 lurk if he knows himself well. Don't look so skep- 

 tical, Mendy. I 'm in earnest about this, and I 

 repeat that no man can ever be a fly-fisher unless 



93 



