The Outfit— lidds. 29 



back-cast is also lost, since all the energy of the rod is 

 expended in slowly drawing the line over and through 

 the water, leaving no surplus force to raise the line and 

 send it on its flight through the air behind the angler 

 preparatory to a fresh cast. 



These considerations form the basis upon which rests 

 the rule that five times, or five and a half times, the 

 length of the rod is the limit of practical fly-fishing. 

 At this distance the power to strike a rising fish is prac- 

 tically lost. 



But it is clear that any cause which lessens the friction 

 of the line upon or in the .water diminishes the resist- 

 ance which the rod must overcome, and consequently 

 increases the useful range of the cast. Such an agency is 

 running water, since the current buoys up the line so that 

 it sinks less. The rule, then, though Sufficiently accurate 

 for still water, will more or less understate the ability of 

 a rod where a more or less sharp current lends it aid. 



Now, a fifteen-foot rod, according to the rule, should 

 handle a Jioe of at least five times its length in still water, 

 or seventy-five feet. But the fly is cast, for salmon, 

 almost, if not quite, invariably upon a current, and a 

 pretty sharp current too. Again, the loss of the ability 

 to strike is of no moment. As we shall endeavor to show 

 hereafter, it is the very first thing that an old trout-fish- 

 erman wants to lose — or at any rate to ignore. I there- 

 fore believe that a good fifteen-foot rod in skilled hands 

 will fish eflSciently at a point eighty to ninety feet distant 

 from the angler, and that such a rod is amply long for 

 substantially every exigency of fly-fishing for salmon on 

 this side of the Atlantic. 



But if a fifteen-foot rod is practically as efficient as one 



