The longer the line used when drying the fly the longer distance the fly travels through the air; thus a lesser number of false casts are necessary to dry it. But it is better to take more time, use a shorter line and more casts, and endeavor not to whip the fly out of shape. After playing and landing a fish the fly will be thoroughly soaked and draggled. Ordinarily it is then best to put up a new fly; if this seems unnecessary, much of the water can be removed by holding the fly close to the mouth and blowing off the moisture, after which the wings should be nursed into their original form.
Before going further into the details of casting and fishing the dry fly it would be well to consider at some length the question of the best times and the most favorable places when and where the angler would be wise to depend solely upon the floater. That the fascination of dry fly fishing is such that many fly-fishermen elect to practice no other method under any and all conditions goes without saying, but the fact remains that under average American fly-fishing conditions the floating fly is sometimes at a disadvantage and the average American angler may well accept this fact with good grace, using the dry or sunken fly turn and turn about as the occasion determines. In this I do not wish to be understood as holding any brief for the wet as against the dry fly for any such reason as that "bigger bags" may at times be killed with the wet fly than with the dry--it is merely a question of a few good fish taken by fair methods under the prevailing conditions. If these may be taken by dry fly casting, so much the better; if not, then assuredly the average angler, whose fishing trips are few and to whom a moderate success on the stream seems very desirable, may have recourse to the wet fly without losing caste. That, at times, nothing can be done fishing dry is a fact easily susceptible of proof.
Personally I have never so fully enjoyed fly-fishing as I have since taking up the dry fly, which I have now come to use almost exclusively and often when I know perfectly well that more success would attend the use of the sunken fly. This, however, I take to be a strictly personal matter; my fishing opportunities are many, and although I am on the stream a great deal (during the last ten years at the very least four days a week throughout the season) it is only infrequently that I go out with any great desire to "catch fish." To the general run of trout-fishermen, for the reasons stated above, I would not advise the exclusive use of the dry fly; if, on the other hand, the angler elects to practice this method to the exclusion of all others, that is his affair--and a matter for congratulation.