TACTICAL 191 



rising — and in the evening I could not find the fly they 

 were taking. 



The advantage of the switch cast is the extreme delicacy 

 with which the fly is delivered. It may be a disadvantage 

 that the fly is not readily delivered dry, though the diffi- 

 culty is not so formidable as it looks. There is, however, 

 the counter-balancing advantage that when you want to 

 deliver your fly wet it is quite easy. 



But switching is not only a fine-weather practice. In 

 a rough wind which drives all the duns close under the far 

 bank a fly cast in the ordinary way across eighteen or 

 twenty yards of water would inevitably be dried by being 

 forced backward through the wind in the backward cast, 

 and as a dry fly would inevitably drag in the far eddy 

 almost directly it lit, it is practically essential to deliver 

 a wet fly. This the switch will do with delightful delicacy 

 and with accuracy quite as great as can be attained with 

 the ordinary overhead cast. 



