Playing a trout in this manner one is master of the situation at every stage of the game from the strike to the landing net; and if, at any time, some unusual action of the fish renders the outcome more than ordinarily doubtful, your chances are many times better for getting out of the difficulty than if you depend upon the reel for the intake of your line; for instance, every experienced trout fisherman knows that often a trout will run out many feet of line from the reel and then incontinently about-face and run in toward the angler—one of the most difficult situations the fly-caster is ordinarily called upon to face.
About nine times out of ten—at least it is not safe to rely upon odds more favorable although, of course, sometimes the fish will be so deeply hooked that the chance is lessened—a slack line spells a lost trout. The rapidity with which a fish coming directly toward the angler creates a wake of slack line is difficult to estimate; in any event, the fly-caster's single-action reel is utterly unable to cope with the situation no matter how skilfully the angler may manipulate it.
The fly-caster who handles his fish as here indicated is of all anglers best armed against the running back of a hooked trout. Once you have reduced the action of stripping in the line with the left hand to a purely automatic motion, so that you perform it quickly, expertly, and without forethought in the matter of how to go about it, it is a very fast fish, indeed, which can accumulate much slack line, for the line may be retrieved through the guides far faster than with any sort of reel and almost always with sufficient rapidity to save the fish.
It seems, too—indeed, it is a fact—that when playing a trout in this manner one can usually tell what the fish is going to do before he does it, and the value of this forewarning should be obvious. Every slightest movement of the fish is carried to the left hand of the angler holding the line, and the least lessening or increase of tension between the rod-tip and the quarry is instantly sensed and line taken or given accordingly. Moreover, the method insures against forcing the fish too strenuously because one knows to a practical certainty when there is too much pull—a thing far more difficult to estimate when killing the fish on the reel.
A FINAL CAST
We have now considered more or less completely most of the matters with which the beginner at dry fly fishing should be familiar, namely, the correct tackle, how to cast, and where, when and how to fish the floating fly; also we have said something of the insect life of the trout stream and of the playing and landing of the fish when hooked. But we have almost entirely neglected any hint of the great fascination of fishing with the floating fly. It is the writer's earnest hope that these pages, which deal so exclusively with the practical side of the matter, may, nevertheless, lead the reader to the stream-side, fly-rod in hand, where, as he quietly follows the stream and his sport, it will presently appear that the matters upon which we have herein placed the most emphasis are, after all, rather unimportant—that the true reason for the dry fly may be found in the sunshine on the riffles, the cool lapping of the stream about a moss-grown boulder, in the quiet of a glassy pool where the duns dance and the peaceful pines are reflected clearly.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
—Plain print and punctuation errors fixed.