"A fly-fisherman, to be comfortable with his sport, needs to be a pretty good caster.  He need not be able to throw a prodigious length of line or to achieve pinpoint accuracy; either of these accomplishments may permit him to rise an occasional extra fish, but the chances are the first one will also cause him to pass up a fish he might otherwise have found.  What he should be is an all-around performer.  He should be able to cast effectively into almost any wind; to fish comfortably, from either bank, with trees at his back; to cast far enough to reach fish without exposing himself; to cast accurately enough to cover a given fish; and he should be able to do all these things comfortably, almost without thinking of them, under normal fishing conditions - when wading deep or poorly balanced or fighting current or cramped for room.  No achievement under tournament conditions is worth much to a fisherman unless he can produce something like it under fishing conditions.

"Most fishermen learn the overhead cast quite thoroughly, develop from this a casual sidearm and occasionally, under extreme conditions, venture a rather halfhearted roll picked up from watching other fishermen who feel that roll-casting is an unfortunate last resort that may set the fly out a little way.

"Having said all this, let me withdraw a little.  I am not urging that every fly-fisherman should be conscious of every cast he makes or should be able to give it a name and catalog number.  If a man can fish comfortably, effectively, and without undue consciousness of his casting under all conditions he commonly meets with, he has attained the ideal.  He had better not interfere with it by bothering to name his casts or remember which one he uses for what purpose. 

"But most fishermen I meet are comfortable only when they have a clear back cast and little or no wind.  When they come upon anything more complicated they are likely to call it unfishable." - Roderick Haig-Brown c. 1951