114 THE DRY-FLY MAN'S HANDBOOK 



stream until its wings are dry. It will then fly ashore, 

 and remain there until the time arrives for its next 

 change to the imago or spinner. If a new and per- 

 fectly dry artificial fly on an eyed hook is dropped on 

 the water alone it will float down the stream in pre- 

 cisely the same way as the natural insect. When, 

 however, this artificial fly is attached to a gut collar 

 and reel-line a new factor at once appears. The line 

 is on the water, and the varying speed of the current 

 acting on different parts of it will tend to retard or 

 accelerate the pace of the artificial fly, or even pull it 

 out of its normal course. 



When fished directly upstream, if the fish is rising 



in the fastest part of the cur- 

 Drag when casting rent in the length of the cast, 

 directly upstream. the fly will travel at the 



natural pace, the line gradu- 

 ally slacken below it, and there will be no drag. If 

 there should be below the rising place of the fish and 

 in the length of the cast a portion of the stream faster 

 than that in which the fish is feeding, this will cause 

 the line to pull the fly down and make it travel faster 

 than the pace of a natural insect in the same position, 

 thus causing drag. The method adopted to retard 

 this drag until the fly is below the rising fish is to 

 check the cast at the forward position, so that the fly 

 does not extend in a straight line, but falls on the 

 water with some slack behind it. Until the fast part 

 of the stream has straightened out this slack there 

 will be no acceleration in the pace of the fly, and con- 



