116 



The American Salmon-fisherman. 



Perhaps the fact that the path to be described by the tip 

 of the rod to accomplish this result must vary with the 

 presence or absence of wind, or its direction if present, 

 may have confused me. Only when a dead calm prevails 

 can directions of this kind be applicable. 



But however this may be, it all amounts to the very 

 elementary principle indicated — a principle which every 

 tyro discovers during the first twenty minutes of his 



maiden effort to cast the fly. We all know that in a 

 dead calm the rod must follow one path on the back-cast 

 and another on the forward-cast; that if the wind is 

 quartering, or from either side, the rod should travel 

 backward and forward in the same substantially perpen- 

 dicular plane; and that when the wind is gusty and 



