394 Book of the Black Bass. 



only his hat and rod are visible. He is facing B. The 

 angler now wishes to make a cast to the left, X being the 

 objective point to which he desires to cast the minnow, 

 some twenty yards distant. He grasps the rod immedi- 

 ately below the reel with the right hand, with the thumb 

 resting lightly but firmly upon the spool, to control the 

 rendering of the line; the right arm is extended down- 

 ward, slightly bent, with the elbow near the body, and 

 with the extreme butt of the rod nearly touching the right 

 hip; the thumb and reel are upward, inclining slightly 

 toward the left; the tip of the rod, or rather the minnow, 

 just clears the ground or surface of the water (the angler 

 is supposed to be wading, standing in a boat, or on the 

 bank) ; the position of the rod is now in the direction of 

 the liae A C, inclining toward the ground or water, making 

 an angle of about 30 deg. with the line of the shoulders, 

 X Z (the inclination of the rod is shown fully in figure 4) ; 

 this is the situation at the beginning of the cast. 



Xow for the east: The angler turns his face toward X. 

 the objective poiat, without turning his body; he now in- 

 clines his body in the direction of C, advancing the right 

 foot and bending the right knee slightly, and makes a 

 sweeping cast from the right to the left, and from below 

 upward, across the body diagonally, until the rod-hand is 

 at the height of the left shoulder, and the arm and rod 

 extended in the direction of A D, with the tip of the rod 

 inclining upward, as shown in figure 5. 



The movement of the right hand is almost in a straight 

 line from a point near the right hip to a point near the 

 left shoulder; the motion ia casting is steady, increasing 

 in swiftness toward the end of tlie cast, and ending with 

 the "pitching" of the bait — instead of a violent jerk — 



