Handbook of Hatches: Introductory Guide to the Foods Trout Eat & the Most Effective Flies to Match Them


Dave Hughes - 1987
    invaluable. -- The New York Times, on Dave HughesPopular reference work updated with full-color photos of the insectsAn understandable approach and useful guide to fishing hatchesCovers mayflies, caddisflies, stoneflies, midges, dragonflies, boatmen, alderflies, and hellgrammites Fishing success comes from making wise observations on stream and acting on them right away. In Handbook of Hatches, Hughes teaches how to match the hatch and not worry about identifying the insect until later, if at all, and to fish better, focus on shape, size, and color to choose the best fly for the situation.

Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die: Fly-Fishing Experts Share the Worlds Greatest Destinations


Chris Santella - 2004
    From Cuba to Kamchatka or the Florida Keys to Mongolia, this guide provides the information and inspiration for a more ambitious fishing adventure.

Joe and Me: An Education in Fishing and Friendship


James Prosek - 1997
    But instead of taking off with his fishing buddy, James put down his rod and surrendered. It was a move that would change his life forever. Expecting a small fine and a lecture, James instead received enough knowledge about fishing and the great outdoors to last a lifetime.The story of an unlikely friendship, Joe and Me is a book for those who remember the mentor in their life, the one who changed the way they look at the world.

The Orvis Fly-Fishing Guide


Tom Rosenbauer - 1984
    All the essential information for the beginning and intermediate fly fisher.

Trout Madness


Robert Traver - 1960
    "Being a dissertation of the symptoms and pathology of this incurable disease by one of its victims." "Here for the delight of all piscophiles are 21 stories accumulated from a lifetime of fishing tales as true as can reasonably be expected of a fisherman."

Lords of the Fly: Madness, Obsession, and the Hunt for the World Record Tarpon


Monte Burke - 2020
    The best fly anglers in the world—Lefty Kreh, Stu Apte, Ted Williams, Tom Evans, Billy Pate and others—all gathered together to chase the same Holy Grail: The world record for the world’s most glamorous and sought-after fly rod species, the tarpon. The anglers would meet each morning for breakfast. They would compete out on the water during the day, eat dinner together at night, socialize and party.  Some harder than others. The world record fell nearly every year. But records weren’t the only things that were broken. Hooks, lines, rods, reels, hearts and marriages didn’t survive, either. The egos involved made the atmosphere electric. The difficulty of the quest made it legitimate. The drugs and romantic entanglements that were swept in with the tide would finally make it all veer out of control. It was a confluence of people and place that had never happened before in the world of fishing and will never happen again.  It was a collision of the top anglers and the top species of fish which would lead to smashed lives for nearly all involved, man and fish alike. In Lords of the Fly, Burke, an obsessed tarpon fly angler himself, delves into this incredible moment.  He examines the growing popularity of the tarpon, an amazing fish has been around for 50 million years, can live to 80 years old and can grow to 300 pounds in weight. It is a massive, leaping, bullet train of a fish.  When hooked in shallow water, it produces “immediate unreality,” as the late poet and tarpon obsessive, Richard Brautigan, once described it. Burke also chronicles the heartbreaking destruction that exists as a result—brought on by greed, environmental degradation and the shenanigans of a notorious Miami gangster—and how all of it has shaped our contemporary fishery. Filled with larger-than-life characters and vivid prose, Lords of the Fly is not only a must read for anglers of all stripes, but also for those interested in the desperate yearning of the human condition.

The Little Red Book of Fly Fishing


Kirk Deeter - 2010
    There are no complicated physics lessons here. Rather, conceived in the “take dead aim” spirit of Harvey Penick’s classic instructional on golf, The Little Red Book of Fly Fishing offers a simple, digestible primer on the basic elements of fly fishing: the cast, presentation, reading water, and selecting flies. The Table of Contents includes:Part One: The Cast: 45 Tips to Help You Cast Straighter, Longer, and More AccuratelyPart Two: Presentation: 60 Tips to Help you Place and Drift Your Flies So that Trout Will Want to Eat ThemPart Three: Reading Water: 37 Tips to Help You Find Trout in a Rive and Effectively Cast to themPart Four: 43 Tips to Help You Select, Rig, and Fish the Right Fly at the Right Time in the Right WayPart Five: Miscellaneous: 65 Tips on Fighting Fish, Wading, Choosing Ger, and Everything Else That MattersIn the end, this collection of 240 tips is one of the most insightful, plainly spoken, and entertaining works on this sport—one that will serve both novices and experts alike in helping them reflect and hone-in their approaches to fly fishing.

Habit of Rivers: Reflections on Trout Streams and Fly Fishing


Ted Leeson - 1994
    Taking his fishing hobby to near metaphysical levels, Ted Leeson tells about his passions: rivers, trout, and fly fishing. With wry humor and rare insight, he explores questions that engage most fishermen: What is it about rivers that draws us so irresistibly, and why does fly fishing seem such an aptly suited response? Above all, The Habit of Rivers is about ways of seeing the wonderfully textured world that emanates from a river.

Simple Fly Fishing: Techniques for Tenkara and Rod and Reel


Yvon Chouinard - 2014
    This book reveals that the best way to catch trout is simply, with a rod and a fly and not much else. The wisdom in this book comes from a simpler time, when the premise was: the more you know, the less you need. It teaches the reader how to discover where the fish are, at what depth, and what they are feeding on. Then it describes the techniques needed to present a fly at that depth, make it look lifelike, and hook the fish. With chapters on wet flies, nymphs, and dry flies, its authors employ both the tenkara rod as well as regular fly fishing gear to cover all the bases. Illustrated by renowned fish artist James Prosek, with inspiring photographs and stories throughout, Simple Fly Fishing reveals the secrets and the soul of this captivating sport. Winner, Guidebooks, Banff Mountain Book Competition 2014

Holding Lies


John Larison - 2011
    He takes us even deeper into the troubles of Hank Hazelton, a fifty-nine-year-old river guide, as he struggles to reconnect with his daughter after a long estrangement. Before his daughter’s arrival, Hank discovers a drift boat stranded below a rapid, its oarsman missing. Within days, the sheriff has opened a murder investigation, one that to Hank appears more about old grudges than objective evidence. When Hank himself becomes a suspect, he’s forced to confront the violent past of his home valley—and his own culpability. In a novel about finding family in unlikely places, Larison breathes life into a community rich with history, sin, and hope, a place where bears still wander side streets and time is still marked by the seasons of the river. Holding Lies is a taut, big-hearted novel, steeped in the ecology of place and peopled with unforgettable characters.

Dynamic Nymphing: Tactics, Techniques, and Flies from Around the World


George Daniel - 2011
    Advanced tight line nymphing tactics, including Czech, Polish, French, Spanish, and American techniques Rigging and fishing dry and droppers, curly Qs, and conventional indicators Fishing the extremes: shallow water, cold weather, high water, wind Casting and technique sequences that include tuck cast, bow and arrow cast, as well as elevating and leading when tight line nymphing62 nymph patterns

The Earth Is Enough: Growing Up in a World of Flyfishing, Trout & Old Men


Harry Middleton - 1989
    It is the year1965, a year rife with change in the world---and in the life of a boy whose tragic loss of innocence leads him to the healing landscape of the Ozarks. Haunted by indescribable longing, twelve-year-old Harry is turned over to two enigmatic guardians, men as old as the hills they farm and as elusive and beautiful as the trout they fish for---with religious devotion. Seeking strength and purpose from life, Harry learns from his uncle, grandfather, and their crazy Sioux neighbor, Elias Wonder, that the pulse of life beats from within the deep constancy of the earth, and from one’s devotion to it. Amidst the rhythm of an ancient cadence, Harry discovers his home: a farm, a mountain stream, and the eye of a trout rising.

How to Think Like a Fish: And Other Lessons from a Lifetime in Angling


Jeremy Wade - 2019
    Now the greatest angling explorer of his generation (Independent on Sunday) returns to delight readers with a book of an entirely different sort, the book he was always destined to write--the distillation of a life spent fishing. Thoughtful and funny, brimming with wisdom and above all, adventure, these are pitch-perfect reflections that anyone who has ever fished will identify with, for ultimately it touches on what fishing teaches us all about life.

A River Never Sleeps


Roderick L. Haig-Brown - 1944
    "Reading a Roderick Haig-Brown book is an experience to be savored slowly and delicately". -- Seattle Post Intelligencer

The Longest Silence: A Life In Fishing


Thomas McGuane - 1999
    As he travels the fish take him to many and various subjects ripe for random speculation: rods and reels, the classification of anglers according to the flies they prefer, family and memory - right down to why fishermen lie.The Longest Silence sets the heart pounding for a glimpse of moving water, and demonstrates what a life dedicated to sport reveals about life.