June 7, 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
715 
Surf Casting 
Third Paper 
By SWITCH REEL 
George Borrows, gypsy Nessmuk would have 
said to one who inquired about the pleasures of 
this life; “There’s night and day, brother, both 
sweet things; sun, moon and stars, all sweet 
things; there’s likewise the wind on the hearth. 
Life is very sweet.” To Nessmuk life was very 
sweet, as it is to anyone who loves God’s great 
outdoors as Nessmuk did. 
The Sort of Letter we Like to Get. 
Clearwater, Fla., May 25 ,—Editor Forest 
and Stream: Yours of the 22d to hand and 
contents considered. 
Replying to your question, will say that what 
I miss in your publication is what other old 
readers express, “the lack of native hunting 
stories.” Those like “Nessmuk’s and Rowland 
E. Robinson's” that have the natural tang and 
flavor of these United States. 
Those of Canada, Africa and Alaska are 
interesting, but grow monotonous by constant 
repetition. 
I for one should like to see a few now and 
then from the Jersey coast, the Chesapeake, 
around the Great Lakes or the Mississippi valley. 
There are certainly plenty of hunters and fisher¬ 
men who still use these regions with pleasure 
and profit, and their names are good ones I 
know, though they seldom get into print in your 
magazine. 
The old hunting ground in “the sunken 
lands” of the Mississippi are not shot out yet 
any more than the bass streams and lakes there 
are fished clean ; and the adventures of hunters 
and tales of game bagged under difficult con¬ 
ditions make as interesting reading as in the 
old days. 
Few of your readers know of the fine trout 
and the skill and difficulty of making big creels 
in the streams of the Carolinas, or of the deer 
and bear, turkey and geese found in the sounds 
on Pocassins of the coast. 
The marshes of Louisiana, the river bottoms 
of the Mississippi, and the bays and marshes of 
the Texas coast still hold plenty of game, and 
the getting of it is often as difficult and adven¬ 
turous as the most daring would care for. A 
few yarns from game wardens, of poachers and 
fish pirates would open the eyes of the blase 
reader. This State offers plenty of material if 
properly used. (Dimock has but scratched the 
surface.) 
Please don’t take these remarks as complaints, 
for I know the materials are handy and often 
hear the yarns told and live some of them my¬ 
self. 
However, your publishing Nessmuk’s last 
story has aroused my interest again, and in the 
hope you may have other material of like char¬ 
acter, I am renewing my subscription, for which 
please find check inclosed. 
I have read your paper since boyhood and 
would really miss it. Philip C. Tucker. 
Quoth the editor: 
“Is life worth living?” 
“Nope.” 
“Why not?” 
■ “Because so many people have a day off 
on my busiest day and come in to ask fool ques¬ 
tions.” 
A side from the pleasures of contemplation, 
retrospection and anticipation, the time 
for the first of which is, in surf fishing, 
perhaps greater than in any other branch of 
the gentle sport, the opinion is here ventured 
that the chief charm of the pleasurable pursuit 
lies in the joy of the cast. 
With tackle “as costly as his purse will 
afford,” your surf angler along the sandy 
beaches of our coast lays out more line in his 
cast than any other brother of the angle, and 
he knows it and he revels in the joy of it. 
It is not uncommon to witness casts of 
over two hundred feet on the beaches of Long 
Island and New Jersey, and, at a notable tour- 
THE AUTHOR AND HIS CATCH. 
nament in 1910, one cast of 314 feet 10 inches 
was measured. What wonder then if the surf 
rod wields so potent a charm over its devotees 
that oftentimes all other rods are abandoned in 
its favor? 
Truly in surf casting “distance lends en¬ 
chantment.” The powerful rod, the finely 
balanced reel, the long slender line and the 
absolute nicety with which the successful cast 
must be delivered are all elements in the com¬ 
bination which gives the surf caster his joyful 
reward when the lead drops smoothly into the 
sea beyond the breakers. 
Failures only make him more determined 
to succeed. He sees others shoot out a couple 
of hundred feet of line—once in a while when 
everything goes right-—and he must do it time 
after time without a break. He fails. He re¬ 
members his failures. They fail. He forgets 
theirs. He watches the man a couple of hun¬ 
dred feet up the beach. Away goes the lead an 
incredible distance out tO' sea and it makes a 
white splash as it drops into the blue water. 
He swings on his own rod and the fore-short¬ 
ening effect makes it appear that the lead goes 
only about half as far as that of his friend. So 
it is strain, strain for distance. What boots it 
that the old sharps who beach the 30- and 40- 
pounders say, “Boys, you’re overcasting your 
fish. Drop your bait just over the break. Let 
it lie just beyond the over-hang.” The good 
advice sticks in the memory for one or two 
casts, and the third one must hit the bar or it’s 
not right! 
Let us look at the tools, the use of which 
gives such great joy. First the rod—split 
bamboo, greenheart, snakewood, De Gama, or 
what not. Individual taste may dictate some¬ 
thing different, but the following is a descrip¬ 
tion of probably the best rod ever made by 
the most famous surf rod builder on the At¬ 
lantic seaboard. It is entirely of greenheart, 
butt and tip. The former is 30 inches long and 
of the type known as the “spring” butt. The 
tip is 6 feet 6 inches long over the ferrule, but 
exclusive of dowel and when assembled is 8 
feet 9)4 inches in length. The butt weighs 14 
ounces, and the tip 16 ounces. The top guide 
is of the offset style, and it, as well as the two 
tip guides, are detachable, this arrangement 
making it possible to fish them on either side 
of the rod, and to remove them entirely when 
traveling. All three are agate lined. The reel 
used in conjunction with this rod is a double 
multiplier No. 2-0, equipped with throw-off handle, 
and is as finely balanced as Michaelson, the well- 
known Brooklyn manufacturer can make it. 
When filled with line a twirl of the handle and 
the quick use of the throw-off will cause the 
barrel to revolve for over five minutes. 
The rules under which surf casting has been 
carried on along this coast in tournaments of 
recent years have called for linen lines of not 
smaller than nine threads, and have prohibited 
reinforcing. 
It is beyond all question that the lightest 
line will yield the longest cast, there being less 
weight for the lead to pull forward and less 
surface to offer resistance to the air. Some 
casters have feared to use a nine-thread line 
with a four-ounce sinker. Close observation 
will reveal, however, that the breakdowns occur 
with casters who take a very short lead, drop¬ 
ping the sinker only a foot or eighteen inches 
from the tip of the rod, while those who take 
a lead of thirty inches or more rarely or never 
break down. The reasons for these results are: 
I. That there is more shock-absorbing quality 
in the elasticity of thirty inches of line than in 
twelve or eighteen. 2. The short lead requires 
a sudden application of power which with the 
longer lead is spread over not only a greater 
length of line, but over a longer period of time. 
The difference is like that between quick burn¬ 
ing and slow burning powder in a gun. The 
