Reading the Water: A Fly Fisher's Handbook for Finding Trout in All Types of Water

Really helped me to identify the different water types and why trout hold in certain areas more than others.

OK, this was an awesome book from every angle you look it at. The only drawback is the lack of fish porn :P, but its a must for beginners, intermediate and expert fly fisherman's.

Only very rarely do I find an honestly great angler who is also an honestly great writer. By my measure I can only come up with four or five. A large majority of fly fishing authors writings fall into what I call the "Art Lee" genre: Thinly cloaked attempts at self aggrandizement. Generally speaking, any useful information or tactics are nearly absent. Dave Hughes understands the topics he so skillfully writes about. He has been uniformly successful in presenting most of the significant topics in fly fishing in a flowing, entertaining, and educational style. Read ALL of Dave's books: you will, without a doubt, become a better angler.

I think that the other review does a good job reviewing, but I'll take a stab at it...I am an semi-experienced fisher who needed to learn more about reading the water, and I am gaining a wealth of good information. The only drawback, and this is coming from me, is a lack of good illustrative pictures. Reading about a riffle or ledge is good, and I am learning alot, but if the book had more photos I would think it would be perfect. But I would definately recommend this book.

Dave Hughes does an excellent job describing and teaching how to read water. On most rivers, you will often see flyfisherman fishing the wrong type of water or at least fishing certain types of water with the wrong technique. Dave Hughes explains the basics water types (riffles, runs, pools, dead water, etc.) in detail. He also explains the different types of aquatic insects found in each type of water and why will be found in certain types of water over others (e.g. why certain nymphs are found primarily in the riffles and others more in pools. He explains where fish will be in each type of water, what insect types will be in each type of water and what techniques work to catch the fish in each water type. It is an all-around very educational book for both the beginner and advanced flyfisher. The beginner can get a wealth of information from the book. A more experienced flyfisher will get many tips/techniques from this book and can use it as an all-around reference book to be read at least once a year. Don't pass up this book because the title seems simple. Everyone can learn a ton from this book. I highly recommend this book.