Comment:
Aside from the utterly awesome and accurate illustrations of dozens of flies, its the honesty of the author I appreciate. In reading how he came to tie his own flies I felt a kindred spirit because he mentioned, the artistic as well as the frugal, self reliant, and even scientific in a 'quaint, naturalistic sense' of tying ones own flies.And that he looked at successful fly fisherman and their fly boxes and like himself and myself he saw a motley crew of flies, from 'either to long and gangly or short and stubby, neat or sloppy, trim or fat, bright or dull. They all caught fish in the right hands, and some of the best of them really did look like drowned rats'. I had to laugh when I read on page 5 where he writes 'I also ran into the idea of flies as art, which further complicated things. I don't mean really well tied fishing flies, I mean display flies tied by people who had no intention of ever showing them to a fish,' since I have know people like that. Sadly they aren't good fisherman and in a couple instances tied flies that probably would have scared fish away. Like the author 'For as long as I've fished with a fly rod, I've had a self conscious weakness for dry flies; first because of their puffed-up classiness, later in spite of it. Dry fly fishing may or may not be the most demanding way to catch fish, but everything about it is visual and beautiful and I've always been a sucker for that kind of thing'. (page 31) The way the author describes the ins and outs of various flies along with accurate illustrations is a college level educational experience. He shares where he has fished with various flies, successfully as well as what each is made of. Which ones he uses most and why. Here is an example: Page 39 'Blue Winged Olive Palm Merger. I tie it on either a Tiemco 200R or a Mustad 94840 hook in sizes 18 and 20. It has a long, sparse tail of wood-duck flank for a trailing nymph shuck, a body of olive goose biot, a small dubbed thorax (I use A.K.'s Blue Wing Olive blend), and a sparse, dun hen collar hackle. It looks like a traditional soft-hackled wet fly, and you can squeeze it wet so it sinks a fraction of an inch or grease it so it floats low in the surface film, where it works as an emerger or a crippled dun'. He covers materials, hooks and tools needed as well as small, medium and large flies as well as spinners, midges, caddis damsels and hoppers, nymphs and streamers. Starting on page 134 he does in-depth explanations of what makes the various caddis i.e. 'Elk-Hair Caddis Light, hook mustard 94840, size 12-18;Thread yellow 8/0;Body:Yellow rabbit-fur dubbing, thin. Palmer hackle: medium ginger. Wing: sparse blond or medium bleached elk, tied down-wing style with the butts clipped to form a small head'. Now this is valuable information because it allows the novice or master to know what supplies to have on hand. My Dad and brother are/were avid hunters and reading this book I was constantly reminded of why my family saved certain hides of elk, deer, rabbits, pheasant, quail, for flies. At the time I never gave it much thought and assumed everyone did. Not until I was an adult and happened upon a fly tie class where people were told where to purchase the stuff did it dawn on me that not everyone is the real McCoy.
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