184 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



heavy Halford line, partially sunk, from the surface of 

 the water. I accordingly sought for some method of getting 

 the line into the air without dragging it, fly and all (especi- 

 ally May fly and all) through the water, and the obvious 

 thing was to adapt a part of the switch or roll cast. I 

 accordingly developed almost automatically the following 

 method: Assume that you are standing beside a stream 

 running from your left to your right, that you have laid your 

 cast across, and that you desire to pick it up for a new cast. 

 You move your rod-point briskly out to the right and up 

 and round in a rapid curve to the left. This picks up the 

 weightiest part of the line and lifts it, bellying in a cork- 

 screw shape, into the air, leaving little but the light taper 

 end on the water, and before it has time to reach the water 

 again the entire line is lifted into the air with an absolute 

 minimum of strain on the rod. If the stream be running 

 in the other direction, the loop at the beginning of the 

 cast may be simply reversed, but this is really hardly 

 necessary if the pace of the stream be moderate. The 

 method is difficult to describe clearly, but it is as easy as 

 possible to pick up, even for an inexperienced caster. 



ARGILLACEOUS. 



It is said of a certain length of the Gloucestershire Coin, 

 by one who knows it well and has a title to his opinion, 

 that no man can hope to catch trout upon it with his gut 

 floating on the surface. He who was responsible for that 

 opinion is essentially a dry-fly man, and that makes his 

 utterance the more remarkable. 



Simultaneously with a general recognition of the fatal 

 effect of one's gut looping clear of the water there seems 

 to have arisen of late years a certain amount of specula- 

 tion on the desirability of sinking the gut in immediate 

 proximity to the fly, and on the means available for bringing 



