Bud was flabbergasted.
"Try it and find out," Gramps said.
Bud took the rod, now strung and with a bit of line the length of the eight and a half foot rod dangling from the tip. But where the rod was a live thing in Gramps' hands, in Bud's it unaccountably went dead. He whipped it back, then forward, and the dangling line splashed at the very edge of the pool.
"You forgot to pay out line," Gramps said patiently. "You didn't use your reel. Let me show you."
He took the rod a second time, and once again laid the line smoothly on the water. Although Gramps had named no target, Bud knew that he was laying the line on the water exactly where he wanted it. Gramps returned the rod and Bud tried again. He remembered to pay out line as he cast, but the line slapped the water only about a dozen feet from shore and a full eight feet downstream from the target Bud had selected.
"You're throwing it," Gramps said, "and you're throwing with your whole arm. Here." He pressed the upper part of Bud's right arm against his ribs. "That's as much as you need and use your wrist. Let the rod work for you; don't you do everything."
Forty minutes later, although he couldn't come close to Gramps' distance or, unless the wildest luck was on his side, lay the line within two feet of any target he picked, Bud felt that he was improving. At least he was able to lay the line on the surface instead of whipping it into the water. Gramps tied a nine-foot tapered leader, a spiderweb at the thick end and like gossamer at the thin end, to Bud's line and showed him how to attach a dry fly to it. Then Gramps put a drop of oil on the fly, greased ten feet of line, and took the rod.
"Watch."
The fly soared out, hovered over the pool, settled on it precisely as a live insect might have, and began to float downstream. Gramps pulled the fly away from a small trout that rose and handed the rod to Bud.
"Go ahead."