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chicky

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any one have suggestions for a good try fly tying book?

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
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Used to love going through one of Geirach's books...it was a paperback the flies were all hand sketched. Loved it because he went through some history on when it worked and how, a short story for each fly...it put the flies in context whereas you get a lot of books where its just a recipe, you copy it but you cannot put what you're tying into any form context. Dry flies are a complicated subject...

 

In many Western rivers i liked to use elk hair and deer hair...sometimes a white foam post kept the bastage afloat...otherwise your fly would spend more time in the powder shaker to dry than it did fishing. It sure is nice to tie with natural materials, they just aren't practical enough most of the time.

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Ray's right about the Kauffman book --it's excellent. My favorites are the Poul Jorgenson books -- Modern Fly Dressings, or something like that. I learned to tie dries from them as a kid. Also, there are some modern books that are good too. I think Charlie Craven has a new basic tying book out, and there is a good overall primer by Ted Leeson and Jim Schollmeyer too. Dries are still the BEST!!!

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Chicky-

 

I haven't read the Kaufmann books, (he has a whole bunch on tying dries, wets, nymphs), but they have a great reputation.

 

But there are two other books in particular that are worth checking out IMHO "Basic Fly Tying" by Charlie Craven and "Trout Flies" by David Hughes-- at least browse the table of contents at Amazon or get your hands on a copy at a Barnes and Noble to flip through.

 

As Jonny mentioned, Charlie Craven has an excellent book "Basic Fly Tying", with very detailed step by steps for a variety of trout flies including nymphs wets and dries. The book assumes no previous tying experience which is helpful even if you've been tying saltwater flies for awhile but are new to freshwater materials like dry fly hackle and hair and other material used for winging dries and techniques you may not have come across like dividing or posting wings, splitting tails, and getting info on the standard dry fly proportions right.

 

The dry flies he covers are Elk Hair Caddis, Stimulator, Adams, Rusty Spinner, Parachute Blue Wing Olive, X Caddis/Sparkle Dun/Comparadun, Royal Wulff, Humpy, Goddard Caddis.

 

Although these are all great patterns on their own, they also represent a wide variety of techniques used on other dry flies-- so if you can tie an Adams for example, you'll be able to tie other "catskill style" dry flies like Hendricksons, March Browns, Gray Foxes etc just by substituting colors of material (hackle, dubbing, wings) in their recipes.

 

In essence, by working your way through the dries covered in the book you'll have the chops to tie a ton of different patterns just by combining different techniques you've learned.

 

But you could also go to his site "charliesflybox" and search his under the "fly box" link for very detailed step by steps for tying these patterns (and more). What would be missing would be the in depth discussion of materials in the book. But you could get a good sense of the level of detail he uses in his step by steps to judge whether his book would be a good fit for you.

 

The other book is "Trout Flies" by David Hughes. This book is also a collection of different trout flies including nymphs, wets dries and streamers. The difference, though is that this assumes at least some basic tying skills. Although it has step by steps, it doesn't go into the same level of hand holding as Charlie's book. It does however cover a lot more different styles of dry flies, including the basics covered in Charlies book-- so for example under mayflies it will also have step by steps for Thorax Duns, Rene Harrop's Hair Wing Duns, "Usuals" (tied with snow shoe hare), No-Hackles, Quill and Biot Body Dries. And there are similarly detailed sections for caddis, stonefly, midge and terrestrial dries covering a variety of different patterns. None of these patterns would be beyond your skills after tying with Charlie's book, but rather just use the same techniques in different combinations and some "new" materials and it's helpful to see the wide variety of patterns all in one place.

 

There also a ton of you tube vids and step by steps out there on the web.

 

Good luck!

 

mark

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great responses guys

thanks much

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
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