Learning from the Water

by Rene Harrop

90 fly patterns that will work east and west Details on insects and the patterns developed to imitate them Hardcover book with 224 pages featuring 288 color photos Ren Harrop records lessons learned from years fishing the worldamp#8217s toughest t

224 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2010

Reviews

[Cliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has some good tips on fly selection for western streams, and peripheral tips on fishing for hard to approach, and hard to fool, spooky trout, but it doesn't say much about actual step by step methods of how to fish for them. It talks about casting techniques, but not necessarily about how to fish your flies, detect strikes, stuff like that. I detected a bit of snobbery from the author against techniques other than sight fishing, especially fishing a floating indicator. I guess if you only fish waters that barely move and are knee deep, the way the author does, sight fishing is always an easy option, but for those of us who fish the deep plunge pools, pocket water, and choppy runs of Appalachian mountain streams, blind methods like tight lining and indicator fishing can be more productive. And contrary to what the author believes, no less skill is involved in fishing those methods than sight fishing. But hey, fly fishing snobbery knows no bounds.