Fly Fishing Master H.C. Cutcliffe Rediscovered in The Art of Trout Fishing in Rapid Streams: Including Cutcliffe's original 1863 Text & Roger ... Fly Collection

by Paul Gaskell, Mr Stephen Shaner (Photographer)

A fascinating story linking a "lost master of fly fishing" from the 1860s to modern tactics and fly patterns for anyone who loves fishing wet flies on small and medium-sized rivers today. Beautiful macro photography reveals the beauty of a unique collection of rediscovered vintage flies - as well as modern reconstructions of missing flies. Using detailed diagrams and descriptions of fishing and fly tying techniques, this book brings the flies and fishing of a talented but forgotten angler back to life. Described as one of only five "indispensable" books by G.E.M. Skues himself, the methods and flies used by Dr Henry Charles Cutcliffe are a lost treasure in the fly fishing world. With the rediscovery of John Shaner's collection of "Cutcliffe" flies tied by Roger Woolley - the renowned professional English fly-dresser of the decades following the 1930's - Cutcliffe's original work has now been illustrated with fantastic colour images. The meticulously-tied flies, complete with authentic dubbing mixes and shades of hackle, were beautifully photographed by Stephen Shaner in New York. With careful reading of the original text, and a year of on-stream fly fishing experiments and practice, Cutcliffe's rigs and fly fishing presentation tactics are also analysed and illustrated with diagrams by the author - fly fisher and freshwater biologist, Dr Paul Gaskell. Details of Cutcliffe's short but brilliant life and career as a surgeon - along with biographical details of Roger Woolley - are also presented. The brief life-stories create a much more human connection to the methods and philosophies captured in Cutcliffe's original book. His original text is included in full in this publication so that tactics, diagrams, fly-recipes and photographed specimens can all be appreciated together. With the translation of some 19th century angling standards and terminology, modern anglers can now benefit from the talents of a fly tyer and angler who was far ahead of his time…Cutcliffe's understanding of inducing a trout to take - through both careful exaggeration in his flies and what he made those flies do in the water - are every bit as relevant now as the moment he captured them on paper in the 1860s. The tactics he reveals foretell a remarkable amount of the mechanics now essential to today's competitive river fly fishing anglers. His high rod-tip/taut line and rapid pace of water coverage with impressionistic flies, attention to cover and stealth plus short drifts and tactics to induce trout to attack would be instantly recognisable to competitors and, indeed, all expert freestone river anglers of today.You may be fascinated by historic "no-vise" fly tying skills or stories of fly fishing and the therapeutic effects of nature provided by free-flowing trout streams? Perhaps you want to rediscover and use, as the author has, the incredibly effective techniques honed on those freestone, English rivers? If so, this book creates a bridge to a rich "visitable past" where we can experience the same excitement and wonder of nature through the arts of fishing and tying flies just as Dr Cutcliffe did.What better therapy is there for an angler?

179 pages, Paperback

Published November 21, 2019

Reviews

[Karl Websdale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard read

Its a hard read not least because of the language used in them days but the kindle edition is like a book copied to pdf format with small writing that does not scale. Also some opinions within are outdated in this day but many are still on point and true to this day. Don't expect anything new though.