This annotated bibliography is intended to list both notable and not so notable works of English language, non-fiction and fiction related to the sport of fly fishing listed by year published. Although 100% of any book listed is not necessarily devoted to fly fishing, all these titles have significant fly fishing content. Included in this bibliography is a list of fly tying, fly tackle, regional guides, memoirs, stories and fly fishing fiction related literature.
Annotations may reflect descriptive comments from the book's dust jacket, third party reviews or personal, descriptive and qualitative comments by individuals who have read the book. Some older works have links to online versions in the Internet Archive or Google Books.
William Blacker (the Irishman who operated a tackle shop at 54 Dean Street, Soho, London) was acknowledged as one of the best trout and salmon fly dressers of this day. His fly dressing methods are described and illustrated in his book The Art of Fly-making which first appeared in 1842 and was reissued in 1843 and again in 1855
— Alec Jackson, The American Fly Fisher.[1]
The Salmon Fly enjoys a unique position in the literature of fly dressing since it brought order and system to the classification of salmon flies and the methodology of salmon fly dressing.[3]
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: CS1 maint: date and year (link)Halford.
And probably the most far-reaching of all American fly-fishing books since World War II, Doug Swisher and Carl Richard's Selective Trout (1971) elevated our thinking not only in fly-fishing theory, but also, through its wonderful photographs of insects, in our basic understanding of what the flies really imitated.
— Paul Schullery, The Rise, 2006[10]
Herbert Hoover, thirtieth President of the United States, is a modern Izaak Walton. He values fishing for the solitude it brings and it theapeutic values to modern man as respects both body and spirit. The present tract is written in the Izaak Walton tradition and perpetuates the tradition of the wily "fresh water trouts" and their ability to outwit man.
— Justice William O. Douglas of the United States Supreme Court[15]
Nowhere else can you get the sidelights on Gordon, LaBranche, and Hewitt that this book gives you, along with the evocative prose that lets you relive, vicariously, some of the most extraordinary fishing and fishing companions of the last five decades. Sparse Grey Hackle was Alfred Miller's pseudonym for these writings which were originally only available as a private publication of the Anglers Club of New York
— Arnold Gingrich, The Fishing in Print, 1974.[16]
Gierach is so laid back he almost vanishes from sight and maybe this is the secret of his writing. These are stories, pure and simple, most of them come from nowhere and go to nowhere and they are about the sort of things we all do, so they seep into your soul and never quite leave you, the way all good writing should. Unlike many writers, Gierach's style and storylines transfer effortlessly from one continent to another and the book has sold well all over the world
— Dr. Andrew Herd, A Fly Fishing History[17]
The loveliest of all her simple narratives is that which I have chosen to stand near the end of this book, – a kind of benediction on anglers.
— Henry Van Dyke, A Creelful of Fishing Stories, 1932[26]
... journalist Sadja provides an engaging history of sport fishing in Pennsylvania.
— Explore Pennsylvania History[30]
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