Our Recommended Reading List
Fly Fishing Titles
The book titles presented below are ones that I have found useful in my search for knowledge about fly fishing. It isn't exhaustive, but I hope it shortens your path to learning about fly fishing
As you will see Dave Hughes sits high on the list. I haven't found a book that he's written that isn't extremely useful. I recommend them to any student who asks. An Amazon.com link is provided so you can get more information about the book and if interested, purchase it.
Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die - Chris Santella
If you're looking for a list of the "greatest" fly fishing destinations to add to your fly fishing bucket list, this is a good starting point. It's safe to say that you probably need to have pretty deep pockets to work in this bucket list. Fly Fishing Tailwaters: Tactics and Patterns for Year-Round Waters - Pat Dorsey
Here's a good one for you Guadalupe River fishermen.
Tailwaters provide extraordinary year-round fishing, but you have to know how to fish them. The author covers how tailwaters work - how cold waters released from a dam affect the water, the aquatic life, and the fish. This book has it all: the hatches, the best imitation flies to use in every circumstance, nymphing and dry-fly tactics, all illustrated with drawings by artist Dave Hall and more than 200 color photographs.Reading the Water: A Fly Fisher's Handbook for Finding Trout in All Types of Water - Dave Hughes
A comprehensive sourcebook for finding trout in all types of water. Covers stream structure, trout foods, and effective flies for riffles, runs, pools, flats, and other water types in small creeks, average trout streams, and large trout rivers. Learning from the Water: Fishing Tactics & Fly Designs for the Toughest Trout - René Harrop
René Harrop records lessons learned from years fishing the world's toughest trout water. His home water, the Henry's Fork, is one of the most challenging spring creeks in the world, and over his lifetime fishing the Henry's Fork, he has developed legendary techniques and flies to meet the challenge.In Learning from the Water, René shares his wisdom on the importance of insect stages, the flies for a successful fly box, and how to plan and prepare for a trip to unfamiliar water. Chapters on midges, caddis, Flavs, Callibaetis, Tricos, PMDs, hoppers, beetles, aquatic wasps, and Baetis give solid inside information on each of these important insects as well as the patterns René uses to imitate them, patterns that inspire fly tiers the world over. 90 fly patterns that will work east and west plus details on insects and the patterns developed to imitate them Dave Whitlock's Guide to Aquatic Trout Foods, Second Edition
An indispensable guide filled with practical observations on all of the major aquatic trout foods of importance to the fly fisherman. Great illustrations. Trout and Their Food: A Compact Guide for Fly Fishers
A new book by Dave Whitlock, author of some of the best books on fly fishing ever written, is a reason for fly fishermen to celebrate—and the aim of this book is simple. Whitlock wants to take the guesswork out of fly fishing and pass on the wisdom he’s accumulated over decades on the water. Fly tying is broken down into simple steps, and Whitlock stays grounded in the practical importance and relevance of every fly in the book. This is a great companion book with Dave Whitlock's Guide to Aquatic Trout Foods Bug Water - Arlen Thompson
Bugwater is that soggy place inhabited by creepy, crawly, hopping, flying, wriggling creatures we call, if imprecisely, bugs. Organized around the seasons, BugWater follows the bugs and the trout through their life cycles from spring through winter. Trout Rigs & Methods: What You Need to Know to Construct Rigs that Work for All Types of Trout Flies & the Most Effective Fishing Methods for Catching More & Larger Trout - Dave Hughes
Dave Hughes's clear and simple instruction and explanation describes 18 trout rigs and 81 methods to fish them. In moving water: rigs and methods for dry flies and emergers, nymphs, wet flies, streamers, and dry flies and droppers. In stillwater: dry flies and sunk flies.Fly fishers learn the specifics of the rig--types of fly line, lengths and tapers of leader and tippet, the flies, and split shot, putty weight, strike indicators, droppers, point flies, and indicators--and the full array of methods to present the rig to the trout. Hughes's lucid text is teamed with hundreds of instructive illustrations, including those showing how the trout views the fly. The more rigs you learn to construct and the more methods you learn to apply, the more situations you'll solve, and the more trout you'll catch. Handbook Of Hatches: Introductory Guide to the Foods Trout Eat & the Most Effective Flies to Match Them - Dave Hughes
Fishing success comes from making wise observations on stream and acting on them right away. In Handbook of Hatches, Dave 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. This popular reference work is now updated with full-color photos of the insects. It is an understandable approach and useful guide to fishing hatches that covers mayflies, caddisflies, stoneflies, midges, dragonflies, boatmen, alderflies, and hellgrammites Strategies for Stillwater: The Tackle, Techniques, and Flies for Taking Trout in Lakes and Ponds - Dave Hughes
From the inside cover: Dave Hughes fills this book with the fun, the experience, and the know-how he's discoveredfishing lakes and ponds. Everything fly fishermen need to know about finding trout in stillwaters is here:
- recognizing and matching lake food forms.
- finding trout beneath the sometimes black slate of a lake's surface
- understanding stillwater structure
- choosing the correct tackle for lakes and casting well with it
- selecting the right fly
- combining all of these factors into successful techniques for taking stillwater trout
Nymph Fishing - Dave Hughes
This is a good, solid work that will be of interest to the beginning to intermediate fly fisherman. It's clearly written and gives good advice. The illustrations are clear and useful. If you want to give nymph fishing a try, or improve your basic skills, you won't go wrong with this book. The Sunfishes - Jack Ellis
This landmark book on warmwater fly rodding - augmented and full of helpful new illustrations - leads fly fishermen into the happy world of bream, bluegill, the basses, and various other panfish. Ellis helps us understand the environs in which the sunfishes are found, the techniques that prove most successful, and the best flies for each species and situation. Here's an invitation to fly fish for the sunfishes - for non-fly fishers, and for trout fishermen who have neglected this chance to enjoy fly fishing for the sheer fun of it. Bassin' With a Fly Rod - Jack Ellis
BASSIN' is more fun with a fly rod! Jack Ellis unravels some of the barriers that face the fly-rod bass fisherman--whether a new convert from spinning and baitcasting or a trout fly fisherman in new water. To fully understand fly fishing for bass, one must have an acquaintance with its origins. This book helps the reader appreciate the rich history of bass fishing. Jack Ellis brings his skills as a naturalist to these pages, not only because of their relevance to successful angling, but also because of their contribution to the fly fisher's overall experience in nature. Jack's extensive experience and experimentation with a variety of flies and fly-rod lures prompt the reader to think about his own bass-fishing techniques. Serious warmwater fly fishers need to read this book. Bass Bug Fishing - William G. Tapply
In his first angling how-to, Tapply, fishing essayist and author of the Brady Coyne mysteries, introduces anglers to the bass bug revival. He eloquently explains the pleasures of bass bugging and offers a fascinating history of the technique, used by Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans. He also covers such specifics as how to tie 10 bass-bug fly patterns; how to cast and retrieve these very large flies; and what equipment and tackle are required. The bulleted arrangement of the text occasionally gets in the way of Tapply's clear and congenial prose, but the value of the information outweighs the sometimes awkward presentation. Bluegill Flyfishing and Flies- Terry and Roxanne Wilson
Largemouth Bass Flyfishing - Terry and Roxanne Wilson
Fly Fishing for Smallmouth Bass - Harry Murray
From the Back Cover...
Harry Murray discusses all aspects of fly fishing for smallmouth in this important book, from topwater flies, bugs, poppers, and tactics, to new brands of streamer, nymph, and "strymph" fishing that he and others have developed over the years. He explores the bass in its environment - its food and feeding patterns. He also shows how best to read the water; how best to fly fish for smallmouth from boats; better casting techniques for the big flies used; how to tie effective smallmouth patterns; and how to choose the right tackle.With the aid of over 100 helpful illustrations by Dave Whitlock, Fly Fishing for Smallmouth Bass is a practical and pathbreaking guide to this growing and exciting sport by one of its pioneers.
Carp on a Fly – A Fly Fishing Guide – Barry Reynolds, Brad Befus, John Berryman
Discover the secrets of flyfishing for carp—learn the habits and habitats of these challenging fish, what flies they’ll take, and how to put those flies in the right place at the right time to catch carp consistently. Barry Reynolds and John Berryman, authors of "Pike on the Fly" and "Beyond Trout," have joined with Brad Befus to challenge you to take advantage of what is certainly the last, great, overlooked flyfishing resource in North America. Put aside your preconceptions, read "Carp on the Fly" with an open mind, and you’ll soon be flyfishing for big, strong, smart fish in water just minutes from your home.
Nymphing: A Basic Guide to Identifying, Tying, and Fishing Artificial Nymphs - Gary Borger
While most of us, if we had our druthers, would cast dry flies to rising fish all day long, the fact remains that a trout takes 90 percent of its prey below the surface. It doesn't require a marine biologist to figure out that on certain days--when the hatch is off--you need nymphs if you want to feel that telltale tug at the end of your line. To this end, Gary Borger provides a comprehensive guide to identifying, tying, and fishing artificial nymph patterns. Chapters on line control (casting and mending), trout biology, reading the water, and fly selection are presented in clear language along with ample drawings and diagrams.