[.ca] Essential Trout Flies (ISBN 0811727483)

From Amazon.com:
If fly-fishing were run like baseball, at the entrance to every river, stream, lake, and pond you'd find a vendor with a stack of Essential Trout Flies shouting, "You can't tell the flies without a scorecard." Since it's not, you'll just have to pick up a copy before your next outing on the water. Given that even seasoned sophisticates have trouble telling their pale morning sparkle duns from their cream sparkle duns without some reference, Essential Trout Flies is as essential as its title promises--both for fishing and for tying. The author of numerous books on angling tactics and equipment, Dave Hughes has assembled a color-filled collection of what he calls the 31 pattern styles and the most useful variations that no fly-fanatic can do without. After a general section on fly-tying materials and techniques, he considers the flies themselves, separating them into three chapters: dries, nymphs, and wet flies and streamers. Then the fun starts. For each of his 31 basic patterns, he provides a history of the pattern and an entomological introduction, a photo of the fly followed by detailed instructions--via continuous text and an accompanying series of color photos--for tying it, pictures of six useful variations, and some notes on the best strategies for fishing them--e.g., when should you use a stimulator, a hopper, or a wulff? For an experienced tyer, this is a terrifically handy and easy-to-use reference; with variations, the 31 patterns multiply to more than 200 proven trout flies. If you just like to fish, Essential Trout Flies is just as handy. It will help you identify flies, understand their entomological basis, sort them into easy-to-recognize categories, and select what you need to carry on-stream at different times of the year. Unfortunately, actually finding the fish is something you'll still have to do yourself. --Jeff Silverman

Essential Trout Flies, by Dave Hughes:
An excellent advantage to all tiers, advanced or beginners. Hundreds of dry fly, nymph, wet fly, and streamer patterns that can get you on your way to success. All of them categorized and easy to find, with fishing tips for every kind of fly. I have used several other tying books to aid me in getting the patterns I needed, including Skip Morris', Fly Tying Made Clear and Simple, The Art of Tying the Nymph,The Art of Tying the Dry Fly, and much more. No one book can compare to this. A MUST HAVE to any person interested in becoming one of the greats of fly fishing!!!

Essential Trout Flies:
I have many fly tying books but, this is my go to book to find simple effective ties time and time again.

Best book on fly tying:
Best book I've found on fly-tying, period. The commentary on how to present various types of flies is very helpful for everyone from beginners to advanced anglers.

A well balanced book:
Like other reviewers before me, I've found this to be a very useful reference. It's got a good selection and cross section of the different types of trout flies, many of which are also very good for warm water species such as panfish. The fishing notes section is very useful in telling how this type fly should be fished and under what conditions. One feature that I really like and that I did not notice that anyone else mentioned is the Useful Variations section. The book will give detailed explanation of how to tie and what is needed for a particular fly (example Royal Wulff) under a section (example Wulffs) and then give the recipes (the "how to" will be the same) for a number of other flies of that same type.

A Very Handy Guide:
A nicely structured book which makes it easy to get around. Each "style" of Nymph, Dry or Wet fly has a featured pattern with some background and comments on materials, plus crisp colour tying shots & the recipes for 6 variants of the style. In addition there are Fishing Notes for each style of fly and I found these particularly helpful. I also liked Daves ability to convey concepts. For instance, in describing nymphing a river, he suggests thinking of it in terms of " ... using the nymph to paint parallel brush strokes on the bottom of the river." Altogether, a highly recommended book for a fly tyers reference library.