Topic: The Best Fly Fishing Books of 2023 (Read 36 times)
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If you’ve left the water cold, tired, hungry, and skunked, wondering why you’ve subjected yourself to such a voluntary activity, this book has your answers. Through stories and reflections, the author explores the “why” behind every cast. Coggins’ stories are instantly relatable to any angler, and each chapter focuses on a different fly fishing niche. The book made me reflect on my own reasons for fishing and resolved my passion for casting a long rod.
This is the ultimate book for light reading acco*panied by a cup of coffee. Enjoying the beautiful photography and reading Rosenbauer’s essays help scratch the fishing itch during the cabin fever months. The chapters follow themes: wading, boats, fish, flies, guides, weather, supporting cast, fishing buddies. My favorite is the chapter on guides. Rosenabauer’s stories of snarky yet personable guides and the tough profession that many of us envy are an excellent amuse bouche to photos that follow. The portraits and landscapes put you in the action and you can almost hear the guides yelling co*mands to the anglers. If you want a book that you can calmly flip through or intensely read, check out “Salt” and its acco*panying book “Flywater.”
New fly anglers have to learn knots, how to cast a fly rod, how to read a stream, and of course the basics of entomology. The Bug Book breaks down insect identification, important hatches by region, life stages, and fly selection. The book is small enough to fit in a fly vest or sling bag so you could take it fishing and use it as a field guide.
Even a simple meat chucker like myself can digest the clearly laid out information in The Bug Book. Weamer does an excellent job making a co*plicated subject easy to understand while still delivering a lot of helpful technical information. He begins with an explanation of trout habitat and how different bodies of water relate to insects. The book progresses into a chapter on insect naming (Latin versus co*mon). Those initial sections set up the heart of the book which is detailed information on the big three trout bugs: mayflies, caddisflies, and stoneflies. Each chapter has color photos of life stages as well as variations like swimming, crawling, clinging, and burrowing nymphs. The text is scientific, but it stays practical to fishing. He closes the insect chapters with a section on how to imitate the bug with flies.
I really liked the balance Weamer strikes of biology and teaching the reader how to catch fish. If you’re new to fly fishing for trout, this book is a must read and will shorten your learning curve tremendously. You’ll be able to confidently identify hatches and know when to expect them as well as how to choose the right flies and naturally present them.
Trout are beautiful, but smallies are more fun. They readily eat flies, fight hard, and are a challenge. If you live in a part of the country with river smallmouth then you’re among the lucky ones who can target bronzebacks in your backyard. The aptly titled book Smallmouth is the go-to resource for anyone interested in learning how to catch smallmouths on a fly rod.
Karczynski and Landwehr kick off the book by masterfully explaining how to read rivers and what smallmouths do throughout the year. That chapter alone answers a lot of questions beginning anglers will have about smallies. It’s full of helpful photos and graphics to co*plement the text. The authors then delve into how to catch smallmouth on the surface, middle column, and lower column. These chapters include information on when to target fish with a particular technique, flies to use, fly presentation, casting techniques, wading techniques, as well as fly rod and line selection. They pack a lot of information into those three chapters and I wish they had divided them up further for easy reference. That problem is remedied by bookmarking key areas for reference later.
There have been many talented fly innovators, but the clear leader of my generation of anglers is Blane Chocklett. Before the Game Changer we used materials that breathed in the water to create movement and even single articulated flies lacked the tail kick of a real fish. Then came this multi-articulated wonder fly that swam like a conventional lure, but could be cast as easily as any big streamer. As trite as the name is, it really was a game changer.
The only issue was that the process for tying these flies was relatively obscure, especially the more exotic variants like the polar changer, bucktail changer, hybrid changer, and mega changer. But now you can tie these flies at home with this informative and easy to follow instructional. Beyond the step-by-step tying instructions, Chocklett includes tips on casting and fishing the flies. While I wanted more patterns in the book, I consider this guide a jumping off point to create changer variants. You’ll learn the techniques and materials used to make all the best changers and you can easily adapt them to make bigger, smaller, or more unique fly patterns.
As you’ll learn in this book, tenkara dates back to the 1600s and is a simplistic fishing style. It involves a long rod, line, and just a few flies. While tenkara is simple, it’s very different from conventional fly fishing and the authors do a great job talking to the co*plete beginner as well as converts. They break down the equipment and rigging in full detail with artsy graphics. The casting instruction borders on poetry and also discusses tenkara philosophy. That theme of indoctrination and clear directions is carried throughout the book. I found the authors’ writing styles sucked me into the book and got me excited to get started fishing tenkara. Their enthusiasm and reverence for this type of fishing is certainly contagious.
