238 A BOOK ON ANGLING 



a sort of centrifugal action (somewhat after the fashion that a 

 juggler spins a hat or plate with a stick), and the line flies 

 towards the point required ; in fact, the cast is the result of 

 the laws of centrifugal force, the line forms the tangent to an 

 arc of a circle described sharply with the rod point, and the 

 angle at which the tangent flies off is controlled by the practice 

 and experience of the angler. It is not an easy cast to make, 

 and requires a good deal of practice. It is hardly possible to 

 describe it, and must be seen and studied to be understood 

 clearly. Fig. 15, Plate XXI, page 326, will show the position 

 of the line and the attitude of the fisherman at the most 

 critical moment of the cast. 



It is impossible to lay down any rule as to how a salmon 

 cast should be fished, further than that it should be fished 

 in the way which suits it best, and this the old salmon-fisher 

 will know from long experience, and the young one from his 

 attendant, who knows the cast and its peculiarities well, and 

 without whom the tyro will be very foolish to try his luck. 

 Some people who know very little of salmon-fishing lay down 

 diagrams of instructions, etc., which are so much waste paper. 

 The only point to be observed in salmon-fishing is, that whereas 

 in trout fishing you often fish up-stream, in salmon-fishing you 

 more often fish down. True, you may occasionally, with an 

 obstinate salmon that won't be persuaded, try a cast up-stream 

 and drag down, and may even once in a way get him up to it, 

 but as a rule you fish down and work up-stream. Even when 

 casting across you work as much against the stream as you can. 

 Of course this does not apply to dead water or large eddies, 

 where the fish lie anyhow. Some anglers, and some writers, 

 lay great stress upon working your fly, and how you are to 

 humour it into the stream, and make it work so that all the 

 fibres like pinions open and shut like a living thing, etc. ; but 

 it is all chips and porridge. I know two first-rate professional 

 fishermen who live but a few miles apart on the same river. 

 One always works his fly, the other swears by a steady draw 

 and an even keel, and yet one is as good as t'other, and they 

 both kill their fair share of salmon. Hear what Mr. Colquhon, 

 a very old sportsman and no mean fly-fisher, says.* When 

 he has tried a pool in vain, he makes his cast and merely 

 winds the line home ; this he calls winding over, and it often 

 rises a fish when other means have failed. Of course when a 

 salmon is shy you try all sorts of ways to make him come up : 



* In The Moor and the Loch. 



