FOREST AND STREAM 
991 
THE TOURNAMENT SURF CAST. 
T HIS paper is an effort to suggest the best 
point of aim to be used in delivering a per¬ 
fect surf cast. 
Let it be understood that what is to be termed 
a “perfect” cast is one in which every ounce of 
energy the caster is capable of imparting to the 
lead is consumed in the most efficient manner to 
attain distance. The energy which one caster is 
capable of putting into the lead may be twenty 
foot-pounds, while another caster may be capable 
of imparting forty foot-pounds, yet both casters 
may be considered perfect if neither wastes any 
of his energy. Obviously the cast of the former 
will be less than that of the latter but that is in 
no wise due to a lack of perfection. 
Speaking from personal experience the writer 
succeeded in winning out in several instances a 
few years ago against half a dozen men capable 
of beating him simply because the better men 
were not working in the most efficient manner. 
Then came a tournament in which the six began 
to find themselves and the writer, doing even a 
little better than before, was seventh on the list. 
To-day he can count at least twenty-five men 
on the New York and New Jersey coasts who 
can exceed his work and yet it was better last 
year than ever before. If the end of the present 
season reveals fifty men on that list he will be 
twice as happy as he is with twenty-five. 
In a perfect cast one great earmark must al¬ 
ways be found. The caster must get his thumb 
off the reel. 
I am aware that the world’s champion does not 
do this. Instead of proving that the statement is 
untrue it suggests that he is capable of doing 
still better work. 
With the reel revolving at a speed equal to that 
of the lead’s flight, thumbing becomes unneces¬ 
sary, because the reel delivers the line at the 
proper rate and the lead is losing no energy in 
taking it. The revolving spool itself is imparting 
energy to the line and the task of maintaining 
that energy or motion is very light. May it not 
be maintained by a vortex of air forming behind 
the lead? If so then the lead may be likened to 
the projectile shot from the muzzle of a cannon 
and the line may be disregarded in so far as drag 
on the lead is concerned. 
All that remains to be considered then is the 
point of aim. 
Theoretically this is a simple matter. The 
point of aim should be 45 degrees above the 
horizon. 
Energy must be applied to the lead in two di¬ 
rections. Vertically to overcome the force of 
gravity and horizontally to attain distance. The 
difference of the angle between a verticle line 
and a horizontal line is 90 degrees. All artil¬ 
lerists know that to attain the maximum range 
for their shells their guns must have an eleva¬ 
tion of 45 degrees. Therefore, the same fact 
must be true of the surf cast, if the caster gets 
his thumb off the reel. 
If the angle of aim be 45 degrees and the 
thumbing is such that the thumb can be removed 
it follows that one-half of the energy applied to 
a cast goes into elevation and one-half into dis¬ 
tance. 
This in my opinion constitutes a “perfect” cast 
when the caster exerts the limit of his muscular 
power. I am ready and anxious to be convinced 
that it is not true. I do not say that in a 400 ft. 
cast the lead must reach an elevation of 200 feet 
but that it must be aimed at a point which is 200 
feet above the horizon at a distance of 200 feet 
from the caster. 
Gravity will then transform the right angle 
into an arc and the friction of the air on the 
lead possibly will transform the arc into a long 
parabola. 
However, after all is said we do not know very 
much about the surf cast. There is more to be 
learned. The same statement applies to the surf 
rod; and the makers of surf reels are striving 
year after year to better their products. When 
such reel makers as the Vom Hofe’s, Holtzman 
and Meisselbach are not satisfied to rest on laur¬ 
els already won it is clear that the future holds 
much in store for tournament casting and the 
development of surf tackle. 
Switch Reel. 
N IGHT, with her attendant twilight, invests 
the marshlands with something more than 
their ordinary charm. She lends them an 
air of mystery and develops in them beauties 
which are not visible in the glare of day. It may 
be the mystery of silence, it is something which 
can more readily be felt than described. Day’s 
harsher lines are softened; her cruder colors sub¬ 
dued and refined. In the concealment of dusk in 
those absences of tangible form lies just that 
quality needed to arouse the imagination to wide 
flights; while the gentle revealings of the half- 
light, those slight evidences of the real world, 
serve as guides to check any tendency toward the 
fantastic, and yet to lead our thoughts into the 
realms of pure romance. Out of the gloom the 
mind constructs pictures of pure beauty, which, 
if they are in fact not really there, she feels 
ought to be there; and feeling they ought to be 
there, she constructs them for herself. And so 
she smoothes herself with the loveliness of her 
dusk-born imaginings. 
And how easy it is either to find or imagine 
beauty in places so little man-touched as the 
wilder marshes. Here, as amidst the newly dis¬ 
covered jungle, beauty abounds. And this beauty 
is of the kind that gains everything from the 
softening touch of nightfall. It is during and 
after the height of summer that we turn with 
greatest longing to the nights. We begin to tire 
of the glare of long days. The flaunting glories 
of leaf and flower become oppressive in their 
monotony. Just as we feel relief in those two 
seasons of change, spring and summer, so for 
the same reasons we find relief in the cool night. 
To the house-dwelling man night is merely a 
time of repose. Then his interest in the out¬ 
side world almost vanishes. He finds the gloom 
dismal, and turns on the light to drive it out. 
On the marshes it is different. Even the house 
dweller, should he perchance take his holiday in 
the neighborhood.of lake or river, finds it differ¬ 
ent. As the life of the daytime ebbs and sinks 
away, another and quite different life awakens, 
and he finds the night as thickly peopled as- the 
day. As the sun sinks lower and lower, and the 
afternoon draws to a close, the life on the 
marshes, which tends to flag during the heat of 
mid-day, gains for a time a new vigor. All the 
stillness and quiet are changed into hurry and 
movement. Small flocks of linnets and other 
finches fly hither and thither, chirping and chat¬ 
tering. Reed buntings appear above the thicker 
vegetation and whistle sorrowfully. The swal¬ 
lows and martins come down from their high 
places in the upper air, and skim over the water. 
Pigeons drowsily coo in the alder clumps or fly 
lazily toward them. Wrens burst into song. The 
reed warblers creep and flit along the sides of 
the reed beds. 
The sun is rapidly sinking. Long shadows 
stretch across the water. Distant features begin 
to take on those appearances which betoken the 
approach of night. Far away the sinking sun 
may catch its rays upon a window, reflecting it 
in a blaze of light. The woods so lately bright 
with' sunshine grow sombre and gloomy. Dis¬ 
tances grow hazy, and soft clouds take on a 
bright glow as the sun sinks out of sight. 
A little fawn-colored dove coos from a willow 
tree near, in a low, bubbling, musical, croaking 
note. Other doves make answering coos. 
Herons come lazily flapping across the marsh, 
their great arched wings moving in slow time. 
The ducks grow restless and quack and begin to 
fly from pool to pool. A snipe darts up with 
wild cries. The last of the butterflies has 
dropped to the ground and folded its wings for 
the night. The bats appear twisting and turning 
in their weird flight. 
Night is not that silent nothingness that is 
sometimes pictured. The earlier summer nights 
are enlivened by the songs of innumerable birds. 
There are the reed warblers, the hedge warblers 
and the grasshopper warblers, and that most 
wonderful of all songsters, the nightingale. 
There is never any actual silence on the marshes. 
Owls mew or hoot or scream. The curlew and 
other wild fowl utter their shrill cries far over¬ 
head. Water hens and coots babble in the reeds, 
rats splash in the water, and all around, far and 
near, are sounds unaccountable and weird. 
Deeper and deeper grows the gloom. Only 
a few swallows now can be discerned skimming 
the marsh for insects. The sand martins twitter 
away to roost on some highlands. Plovers wail 
mournfully and the faint forms of birds strag¬ 
gling in to roosting places may sometimes be seen. 
Moths dash past and are gone. The tiny voice of 
the wind comes stealing and creeping through the 
reeds in a whisper, causing the reeds to tremble. 
The light shows the first faint signs of return¬ 
ing day. There is a slight change in the color 
of the sky. A cock crows and is answered by 
another. The day is breaking. A bird twitters. 
The stars which were bright an hour ago are 
fading. Gradually the light grows. Distant ob¬ 
jects which were invisible again take form. The 
world is returning to life, there is a feeling of 
being upon the bosom of an immense sea whose 
boundaries are infinitely remote. A heron flies 
away with a scream. The ducks begin to leave 
their feeding places. The sun is about to rise. 
The first breath of the morning breeze sends the 
dewdrops on the reeds tinkling into the water, 
and so, peacefully and with silent steps, comes 
the day, and on every side the birds burst into 
rapturous song. 
