Fly fishers are always looking for useful, reliable, and trustworthy tips to improve their fishing. Veteran author and fly fisherman Skip Morris gives a year’s worth of practical tips for taking trout, large and smallmouth bass, and panfish from streams and lakes in a handy, easy-to-read and grasp format. Tips include info on casting, finding fish, rigs and strategies for using them, techniques, the right tackle, knots, hooking, playing and landing fish, releasing, fishing lingo and terms, and staying safe. For further help, the tips are illustrated with instructive line drawings and color photos.
This full-color guide offers one trout fly for every day of the year, each featured with a beautiful macro photo and a list of the materials needed to tie it.
The average fly fisher spends just 15.6 days per year on the water. Of course, few of us are fortunate enough to spend every day of every month casting into riffles, pools, and undercut banks in search of those finicky browns, brooks, rainbows, and cutthroats. Luckily, the diverse collection of gear in 365 Trout Flies provides some measure of solace to those legions of desk-bound fly fishers. Presenting enough flies to span the year, expert fly fisherman John van Vliet offers suggestions for the spectrum of salmonids fly fishers are most likely to encounter as well as the breadth of locations—from small, pastoral chalk streams to forested, free-stone rivers. Each spread depicts a group of three flies along with materials recipes, captions from the author detailing how and where to fish them, and interesting related historical facts. For ease of reference, the book is organized into five categories covering each of the major fly types—nymphs, dries, wets, streamers, and terrestrials—and is illustrated throughout with exclusive macrophotography of the flies themselves. The front matter and section openers are illustrated with gorgeous, scenic fly-fishing photos. From traditional stalwarts like the Adams, Light Cahill, Royal Wulff, and Hare’s Ear Nymph to more modern twists like synthetic inchworms, sand-encased caddis emergers, and the Chernobyl ant, John van Vliet’s 365 Trout Flies functions as both a practical how-to guide for the fly enthusiast and a handsome collection highlighting the art of these faux-entomological wonders.
From two of the biggest names in the industry comes this all-encompassing guide to fly fishing trout lakes. Combining their vast knowledge on fly fishing, fly tying, entomology, and aquatic biology, Skip Morris and Brian Chan have created a book full of information for lake fly-fishers of all levels. They share: general techniques; reading a lake; cycles of a trout lake; insects and other trout foods; productive lake flies; casting; watercraft; equipment; knots; trout species; learning a new lake; courtesy and safety; and more. With the teaming of Skip Morris and Brian Chan, you are getting the advice of top experts in the fields of fly fishing, fly tying, entomology, and fish biology. This is your guide for improving and perfecting your skills as a lake fly-fisher.
This essential book on fly tying will teach anyone how to tie flies. All the important techniques are illustrated with color photographs, from starting the thread on the hook to whip finishing. The book lays the basic ground work by fully explaining simple tying techniques, and then progresses to detailed tying instructions for some of the most popular, modern patterns. How to choose and prepare the correct material, and all the necessary tying steps for each fly, are detailed in superb, large, color photographs. Even if you have no previous tying experience, you'll be able to tie dries, nymphs, streamers, saltwater offerings, and bass bugs after just a few sessions with this book. The tyer is then advised how to progress to similar patterns using the same basic techniques. Also included is a huge reference of fly patterns - more than four hundred flies from the Orvis catalog are shown in full color, along with the tying recipes and proportions for each one. This book, drawing from the Orvis Company's vast resources and teaching experience and written by an author whose name is synonymous with Orvis, has become the bible for fly-tyers of all skill levels.
Herb Welch, the inventor of the still popular streamer pattern, the Black Ghost, is Maine’s first and only celebrity guide to gain international status. With over 200 images including archival black and white and color images by photographer John Swan, this book documents the incredible life and work of a man that excelled in art, sculpture, taxidermy (he was the premiere fish taxidermist of his day), demonstration fly casting at major North American venues, and guiding. In addition, the Hilyards include never before published streamer patterns from the Rangeley region, including nine named streamers originated/adapted and tied by Herbert Welch as well as ten newly identified streamers originated and tied by Carrie Stevens, including her only known early wet fly pattern.
The Definitive Book on Spey Flies Within fly tying, and within steelhead and salmon angling, Spey flies occupy a substantial niche. These flies are exceptionally popular in America, not only on the “steelhead coast,” but nationwide among fly tying enthusiasts, and they enjoy a substantial popularity worldwide; their popularity has gained renewed enthusiasm with the latest generation of young tiers and anglers (the private Facebook page “The Spey Tyer” has 3,600 members). The author is the world’s leading authority on the history and tying of Spey flies simply because they caught his fancy in the 1980s and over the years he has conducted more research on the topic by far than anyone else. His vision for this new incarnation of his original Spey Flies (Amato Publications, 2002) includes a tremendous upgrade from the original—an entirely new book, in fact—because he has uncovered so many historical facts, intrigues, people, and flies that have never been compiled in a single volume, or even presented in any form to the interested audience. The original Spey Flies was graphically rich; the new book is far more so.
Expert fly tier Skip Morris shows how easy it is to tie classic and popular flies for all kinds of fly fishing, presenting basic information on tying effective go-to flies in a clear, organized way and giving advice for when tying goes wrong. Skip covers nymphs, streamers, soft hackles, and dry flies with 16 classic flies—Wooly Bugger, Mickey Finn, Black Ghost, Griffith’s Gnat, and many more. Fly Tying Made Clear and Simple is the primer for learning how to tie flies—a time-tested classic.
This long-awaited book is both a history of the woman and the region, as well as a guide to the Stevens method. It includes color plates of original patterns, some only recently discovered, along with a biography illustrated with archival photos.
