FLY CASTING. 103 



lakes and wide streams you should learn to make long casts, 

 and learn to drop the flies gently, especially for still waters. 

 If you fish mountain streams where the trout lurk below 

 boulders, under logs and similar small spots of water, ac- 

 curacy casting rather than distance casting should be prac- 

 ticed, also practice casting under logs and bunches of brush, 

 over branches of trees that hang near the water, etc. For 

 this kind of water it will pay to learn the side cast and roll 

 cast well. Also, learn to cast with either hand. 



Whether to cast up stream or down stream is a ques- 

 tion that every angler must settle for himself; there are 

 weighty points both for and against either method. To get 

 down to the bottom of the question, it is the sight of the 

 angler that alarms the fish, sending a trout scurring and 

 causing a bass to turn slightly and watch the angler, both 

 refusing to rise to the fly. Now a fish always lies with his 

 head upstream, or with his nose to the current, and he can 

 see straight ahead, to both sides, and quite an angle back 

 of the direct transverse, some say to an angle on both sides 

 of thirty degrees from the body line. Therefore to be in- 

 visible, if standing out in the open, the angler must be be- 

 hind the fish and inside of a section of the circumference 

 of a circle comprising sixty degrees of same, with the fish 

 for the center. From this vantage point the angler, if he 

 does not splash or make too much commotion in the water, 

 can approach quite close to a fish without being seen, and 

 long casts are not needed. This is a great point in up- 

 stream fishing. Another is that the mud or sand stirred up 

 by the angler floats away behind him, into the water that 

 has already been fished, and this will not alarm any pros- 

 pective catch. The points against upstream casting are that 

 the fish will not see the fly if it falls a little short, that 

 the current instantly sweeps the fly towards the angler, after 

 the cast, and in case of a rise the angler sometimes cannot 

 strike quickly enough, or rather cannot recover the slack 



