  On Casting The fly must not be thrown directly on to the water, but should be allowed to drop there by gravitation. Thus the line should extend itself in a perfectly straight line in the air, at least a foot above the surface of the water, and then the fly will drop naturally upon it. On Keeping the Line Floating Unless the line be floating it is almost impossible to avoid a “drag,” which is, as a rule, absolutely fatal. The best way to make the line float is to rub the last twenty-five yards with vaseline, then go over the line with a lump of beeswax, and finish up by rubbing very gently with a rag with vaseline upon it. A rag should be carried when out fishing, with a small piece of beeswax in it. A small tin of vaseline must also be taken and then, On Making the Fly Float Many fishermen use odourless paraffin; but it takes some time for the paraffin to float off, and when a quick change of flies is necessary, this is a great disadvantage. If the finger be dipped very slightly in the tin of vaseline, so that there is just a suspicion of it on the skin, and the hackle of the fly be rubbed with it, the fly will float as well as it does with the odourless paraffin, and the vaseline will not float off. Personally I prefer not to use anything. This entails a small amount of extra labour in drying the fly; but the tints of the fly are not altered, as they often are if any form of grease is used to make the fly float. RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY. TRANSCRIBER NOTES: Punctuation has been normalized without note. Footnotes have been moved closer to their reference point in the text. Page x: Page "72" changed to page "73" Chapter VIII, Winged Ants. Page 10: "biassed" changed to "biased" (I must be naturally biased). Page 100: "teased" changed to "teazed" for consistency (teazed up with fur). |
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