Fly Fishing,    Flies,    Opinion

The Ultimate Fly Tier's Book? The Underground Asks its Readers.

By Tom Chandler 10/5/2006

Winter means different things to different people. Some bundle up like the Michelin man before heading out to fish, while others fire up the vise and re-stock depleted fly boxes.

In the interest of speeding your winter tieing, the Underground's asking for something never in short supply around here: an opinion. What is your favorite fly tieing book?

This isn't a "one book on a desert island" kind of question. Instead, we want to hear about the book that altered the way you tied or fished - a book with a point of view or philosophy that worked its way into your fly fishing consciousness.

Dave Hughes bookMy pick? Trout Flies: The Tier's Reference by Dave Hughes. His philosophy emphasizes "buggy" flies over exact imitation, and his approach to fly tieing is to strip away the window dressing, focusing on what actually catches fish.

This book introduced me to the Beetle Bug (Official Attractor Fly of the Trout Underground); unpretentious and clearly written, it's not a pattern book (though there are plenty of those) but more a philosophy of fly fishing.

Tag. You're it. Let's hear it from the Undergrounders.

AuthorPicture

Tom Chandler

As the author of the decade leading fly fishing blog Trout Underground, Tom believes that fishing is not about measuring the experience but instead of about having fun. As a staunch environmentalist, he brings to the Yobi Community thought leadership on environmental and access issues facing us today.

25 comments
In your other post about the Pond, you mentioned Streamers. The single authority on traditional Streamer and Bucktail tying is Joseph D. Bates classic "Streamers and Bucktails, the Big Fish Flies". (Alfred A. Knopf (1979) ASIN: B000UDVNBW ~ Some of the prettiest color plates you'll find of Salmon, Trout and Bass flies. The popular eastern salmon fly "Colonel Bates" is named after him. He fished in ... more the Minnesota area and Lake Mooselookmeguntic. No, REALLY !
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RE: The Dry Fly: New Angles and Caddisflies. Keep in mind that some of those patterns are designed for a very specific stage of the hatch in question. Others are unusual attractor patterns, etc. Yes the sparkle pupa is a great caddis emerger pattern and is very effective when trout are feeding on emerging caddis. The problem lies when anglers try to use it as a general searching pattern. It's not ... more effective at all when used in this manner and then they don't catch fish with it and give up on it.
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First get Helen Shaw's book to learn how to tie and then Datus Proper's "What the Trout Said" to understand what works. As mentioned already, the Hughes book is good because it wades through the BS. Too much of what is out there has limited use and caters to the model builders.
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I've tied some of the flies from The Dry Fly: New Angles. I fish the Double-wing quite a bit and do well with it.
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"Innovative Saltwater Flies" is the only book that I keep next to my flyting table. Mainly for the Borski stuff.
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I tied few patterns from Caddisflies a year ago: Dancing Caddis, Free living Caddis Larvae, Cased Caddis - they haven't worked so far, yet I must admit that I haven't really used them... But then again, you can't get anything with a thing that you don't use. I'll give them another year or so before I dump them.
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Years ago I bought a couple of LaFontaine's books ("Dry Fly: New Angles and others). He made a convincing case for some fairly unusual patterns, but outside of the sparkle pupa, none have found a home in my fly box. I tied a few of them, fished them, caught nothing, and moved on. Anyone have different experiences?
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borger's 'designing trout flies' does it for me. i hear there is an update coming.
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Ok, clearly I'm a rebel; I prefer the Hare's Ear to the Adams as an all-around dry, and anyone who disagrees probably beats his dog. It's really that simple. Playing alone with the "stages" idea, I'm confident we all bought a lot of fly tieing books that haven't served us that well. I got rid of most of mine when the LT Nancy and I consolidated households, and the genesis of this thread went along ... more the lines of "what books are useful and have a strong point of view to offer the reader?" So far, we're doing pretty good. More lurkers should chime in here...
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Hey, keep that quiet, will ya? If I ever get on Jeopardy, I'm going to answer every question with "What is a size 16 Adams?" and then replace Ken Jennings as the king. - rriver
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I have always read fly tying books like a Playboy magazine - ignoring the bulk of the text in favor of the pictures. As one of the self confessed members of the "lunatic fringe" of fly tying, I have found that your choice of books largely depends on which of the three phases of tying you are in... Phase One: nothing the author says makes sense, as "mending" is something your mother does to your jeans, ... more and "whip finish" describes what your dad does when you tear them a second time. In this phase, pictures are the most important, as you get a feel for what the fly should look like when finished. Phase Two: This phase is the longest, where fly tying has replaced "Monday Night Football" as your house of Worship - and you carry a pocketknife so that you can quickly cape a stray cat that has fallen prey to a steel belted radial. This phase requires books on fly tying esoterica, as you have mastered the basics and are now prone to fits of artistic fancy. Phase 3: This is the phase most of us are in now. We have tried exacting replicas, dallied with every phase of the mayfly lifecycle, and have come to the horrifying realisation that our "pre-coital-blue-balled neo-spinner" catches little more than a Parmachene Belle. In quiet desperation we return to fishing Adam's in size 20 - 3/0. My vote is for A.J. McClanes "Standard Fishing Encyclopedia" - it's what I began my career with...but as a member of the lunatic fringe, please take the reccomendation with an ocean of salt.
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A couple of books I found very helpful some years ago were the ones by Randall Kauffman, Tying Dry Flies and Tying Nymphs. Every step of the fly pattern is illustrated and I particularly liked the way he laid out the pitfalls of certain steps. For instance, how to prevent your winging material from rolling around the hook. AK's production book is great even if you don't plan to tie a gross of flies ... more over the weekend. He essentially tells you how to streamline your fly tying to eliminate wasted time. He's also into preparing some of his own materials like quills for bodies. Not my favorite topic, but certainly useful stuff. Come to think of it, AK's Fly Box is a good title too.
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Can any of you guys recommend Production Fly Tying A.K. Best for non-production fly tier? I need quite a lot of flies but I don't have much time to tie, is this a book for me?
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I went through Nemes and then Hughes Wet Flies. I use soft hackles quite a bit. I read Nemes books a couple of years back, tied a bunch of soft hackles and fished in the rain on a cold March on a stretch I always found too slow to nymph and too fast to fish dries. By dumb luck I hit a mayfly hatch. I probably caught more than 100 fish on that dreary Sunday, with a good percentage really good fish ... more including a few steelhead. That day changed how I looked at that water, soft hackles and wet flies. I have read and re-read the Nemes books. I would love to fish with that guy. I'm amazed how these flies are really a secret, though so effective. - rriver
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Essential Trout Flies is a collection of excerpted chapters from Trout Flies. Almost exact copies of the corresponding chapters in most cases. My brother owns the larger book, so I've gotten a look at both. Hughes takes the most common and useful patterns from the larger book for Essential. So you get chapters on traditional dries, parachutes, wulffs but not burned wing mayflies or such like that. ... more If you own the larger book, you already own Essential. No need to buy both.
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@Hawg: it's not unusual in publishing to pare down a big (and expensive) book for a cheaper version. I was fairly sure that's what "Essential Trout Flies" was, so I didn't buy it. Be nice to know for sure. I'd heard good things about Gonzales' book, but also heard that the patterns aren't the easiest to tie. On that basis - and the simple fact that I'm a lazy tier - I haven't bought it yet. While ... more I don't want to create a laundry list of book titles (love to see some new names plump their choices on this thread), I wanted to mention a book that put me in touch with a whole new set of flies: Dave Hughes' "Wet Flies" Soft hackles had largely fallen off the fly fishing world's radar when he wrote this book, and I knew almost nothing about them. I believe I read his book in the mid-90s, and now I carry a box full of soft hackles everywhere, and a biot-bodied soft hackle is my best "technical" BWO emerger...
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“Fly Fishing Pressured Water” by Lloyd Gonzales is quite good, and is truly "new". Most of the flies I have found difficult. I still can't get his wing burning techique right. How he explains it and how he pictures it are different. There are some amazing flies there. Another good one is "Tying Better Flies" by Art Scheck. Good solid nymphs, dries, buggers and streamers. Really well described ... more techniques. - rriver
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Actually, it looks like I was wrong. Amazon lists Trout Flies as coming out in 1999 and Essential as 2000. Maybe I just came across Essential first. Sorry.
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Good Flies by Gierach probably gave me more new patterns and variations to my standard patterns than any other book. If I'm not mistaken, Essential Trout Flies came out first and was later expanded into the larger book? I learned to tie from Essential Trout Flies.
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Couple of good book suggestions in there. I wonder if Hughes' "Essential Trout Flies" isn't simply a shortened, simplified version of "Trout Flies - a Tier's Reference"?? IT would make sense to re-task the big book's content to offer a less expensive version. I hadn't considered DVDs overmuch, but I'll keep Olive Edwards in mind while mentioning Bob Quigley's "Signature Flies" DVD. I think of Quigely ... more as the "Mad Scientest" of the fly tieing world, and his famed Quigley Cripple pattern has been ripped off (and in some cases renamed) by a lot of fly tiers. A great pattern from an innovative tier.
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Well if it's fly tiers that have changed the way I tie, I can only recommend one book and that's Trout Hunting by Bob Wyatt. His approach involves very simple flies that present strong triggers and are incredibly durable. I fish pretty close to exclusively with a couple of his patterns.
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A book... Some years ago, I was unsatisfied with my fly selection. Then, about this time of the year, the Amazon shipped me Essential Trout Flies by Dave Hughes. I putted all my old flies to fly boxes of my wife and friends and tied 3 fly boxes full of flies during the winter - from Hughes' book. rriver - DVDs are great. It is great to see "masters" (Finnish tier Veli Autti comes to mind) to tie. ... more They don't tell you everything they do, but if you watch carefully (that is with even more intensity that 4 year old boy watches Bob the Builder) you notice small things they do when they tie flies.
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Check out "Fly Fishing Pressured Water" by Lloyd Gonzales. It's only been out for about a year, and it has some very innovative techniques and ideas about both fishing and tying. It goes against the modern trend of tying simple impressionistic "buggy" flies and presents practical realistic tying styles instead. The emphasis is on flies which realistically imitate the look and motion and posture of ... more the real thing.
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One thing I forgot to mention. If you tie many flies, you quickly figure out how similar many are. His book eliminates this and focus on the basics, which always work. - rriver
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That would be my pick also. For some reason, it does not get the attention "The Benchside Reference" does, though they have put out "The Benchside Introduction to Fly Tying" to fix its short comings. Too little information on too many techiques. The new book focus on flies, with the techniques through a unique flip style. I tied a lot of flies, but when I am tying something I don't tie all the time, ... more its good to have a recipe, and a variation of flies to pick out. For a single best volume, its in a class by itself. The Hughes book is better than anything else because of breadth of the subject, and the good tying instructions. For DVD's check out the Oliver Edward's stuff. This guy is an amazing tier, though he does not have the speed of American tiers, or the hand finesse. His flies are wonderful. If you like "Wallace and Gromit", imagine a smarter Wallace tying flies (without the cheese and crackers). He is an expert fisher also. - rriver
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