156 Fisninc iw American Waters. 
again, sometimes as many as four times, before he fastens. 
It is necessary that the line be so straight that a slight touch 
will be felt by the angler, and that a responsive jerk at the 
top of the rod will be sure to fasten the fish. But if the line 
is slack, and the trout happens to get hooked, he will be like- 
ly to disgorge before the angler has time to strike. Do not 
be in a hurry to lay out more line than you can cast straight 
from the tip of your rod to your stretcher-fly. Some good 
fly-fishers prefer to cast a short line, because it is so much 
easier for them to hook their fish and play him. Especially 
is this the case when trout are plenty. On Long Island they 
are educated; but even there do not strain your nerves and 
muscles to make a wide cast. Experience is the only teach- 
er who will confer the perfection of casting. 
So. soon as the angler learns to lay out thirty feet of line 
straight, without a bend from the tip of his rod, he may count 
himself a fly-fisher; and as he continues to practice for im- 
proving in the elegance of his casting, he will naturally ac- 
quire the habit, so that fifty or sixty feet casts will be done 
with perfect ease, grace, and precision. Over-hand and under 
casts will be his next practice, in order to succeed in wading 
a stream overhung with willows or alders, or margined with 
large trees whose wide projecting branches warn the angler 
to beware lest he cast too high. 
Many simple souls suppose angling an indolent pastime ; 
and Johnson’s plagiarism from a Greek author of “a stick 
and a string, with a fool at one end and a worm at the oth- 
er,” helped to fix in the minds of the ignorant the impression 
which the stolen aphorism was intended to convey. Such 
vulgar witticisms may please the splenetic; they only dis- 
gust liberal-minded men. 
A word more about the costume of our model angler. The 
color of the dress should either be green, to blend with the 
foliage, or gray, to harmonize with the shade of the rocks. 
Wading boots, with rubbered silk extensions, are the lightest 
and best, except, perhaps, the Scotch wading stockings, of 
