The Fly-Fisher's Craft: The Art and History

This is a great book for anyone who has the fly fishing bug and who appreciates its history and evolution of this beautiful sport.

I learned fly fishing and fly tying using my grandfather's books and gear back in the '70s, so I was already a little behind the times at the very point I started, but I've always enjoyed the sense of connection to past traditions that was inherent then. Somewhere along the way, I fell out of fly fishing for a decade or two, and when I returned, nothing was familiar anymore. Graphite rods, fluorocarbon leaders, tying materials I'd never heard of, reels that look (and cost) like alloy rims from a Ferrari . . . the disconnect was amazing, not only from the familiar but seemingly from the history as well. I retreated to my grandfather's bamboo rod and silk line spooled on an old Heddon Imperial or pre-war Pflueger Medalist. This book is a wonderful antidote. If you've ever pondered how a fly might have been tied and evolved from the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries, about the materials that went into line and leader, about wooden rods and antique fish hooks, if you've ever actually wanted to try making any of these items yourself and fishing with them, then you'll love this book. I often enjoy trying things "the old way" even if I don't intend to make it my constant practice. It's important with history, though, not to get stuck there, and this book is not just a throw-back, as Martin ties the past in with the present, letting the experiences of history inform his personal modern fly patterns. His well researched explorations of ancient angling literature is pulling me backward several hundred years from the mid-twentieth century, and helping me a bit to deal with the twenty-first. (And, oddly enough, makes my silk line and cane rod seem so modern! I never knew just how much history had gone before.) I'm sure it's a significant percentage of fly fishers that tie their own flies. For those fly fishers with a strong sense of history and tradition that enjoy using their hands to craft their own tools to pursue their sport and wish to take it further and down an antique road, and even for those interested in the history of fly fishing with no intent to make anything at all, this book will prove eye-opening. I'm only part-way through my copy now, but I know this volume will take its place on my bookshelf next to books by Izaak Walton, Ray Bergman, Joe Bates, William Blades, Milford "Stanley" Poltroon, and the others I've valued over the years. I'm equally sure I'm going to try my hand at bending and tempering some of my own fish hooks before long, as well. Maybe I'll even build a wooden loop rod or a furled horsehair line. Darrel Martin put a lot of care into creating this book, and he gets my thanks.