Best Fly Fishing Books

The Bug Book: A Fly Fisher’s Guide to Trout Stream Insects is a fantastic introduction to the aquatic entomology for the trout angler. If you’re feeling confused about the insects that you’re seeing on the water, this is the perfect book for you.

Whether you’re an experienced or novice angler or if you simply want to increase your knowledge of aquatic insects and their imitations, you’ll get tons of useful and interesting information from The Bug Book.

The author, Paul Weamer features a plethora of unique beautiful bug photographs and the content is non-technical and focuses on the information that you need to become a stronger fly fisher.

Weamer successfully breaks down the barriers between beginner and entomologist in a conversational tone and explains when and why identifying insects is both practical and fun. The author starts with the limnology of rivers and waters and helps you to understand the characters of everything from spring creeks to reservoirs and ponds.

From sowbugs and scuds to aquatic worms and crane flies, you’ll quickly learn how to identify what you’re seeing on a stream and your best option for imitating it.

In his book, Tactical Fly Fishing: Lessons Learned from Competition for All Anglers, Devin Olsen explains how the techniques he has used to become a repeat medalist in fly fishing competitions around the world are adaptable to everyday fly fishing scenarios.

Olsen covers tactics, strategies, flies for rivers, small streams, and still waters which will allow anyone to fish successfully by applying the approaches taken by competitive anglers.
Devin Olsen is a highly successful fly angler who has molded his skill on the water through endless hours of experimenting, victories, and failures. The best anglers are able to create an organized plan of attack that factors in variable water types, bug activity, pattern choice, positioning, and casting approach.

This is a very useful book with great insights afforded by the author’s long history of fly fishing. A feature of the book is the extensive set of photographs that are mixed with excellent drawings.

Tactical Fly Fishing: Lessons Learned from Competition for All Anglers provides an in-depth and updated perspective on fly fishing using the techniques that world competitive fly fishermen use. It not only covers the techniques perfected in world-class events but helps you understand how to approach the river, how to fish places you would normally walk by, and chapter by chapter guidelines on the various types of water.

Fly Tying For Beginners: How to Tie 50 Failsafe Flies is a foolproof book that provides a complete guide to making 50 versatile flies for trout and salmon fishing.

Each featured fly includes close-up shots and an explanation of its component parts, from threads and yarns to beads, feathers and tinsels. The clear instructions allow the reader to master the core techniques quickly, and the detailed photographs take you them through every stage of the process, from dubbing the body to fixing the hook.

Fly Tying For Beginners: How to Tie 50 Failsafe Flies provides lessons on how to make sturdy dry flies, wet flies, streamers, hair wigs, nymphs, and bugs. Each entry describes where the fly should sit in the water and which fish is best used to catch.

The author, Peter Gathercole, is one of Britain’s leading fly dressers and he’s also a reputable photographer and writer of articles and books on game fishing.

The Little Red Book of Fly Fishing provides an absolute wealth of knowledge. This book, written by Kirk Deeter and Charlie Meyers includes tips, nuances, cheats, and wisdom that is relatable to every fly fisherman.

It’s undeniable that after reading this book, you’ll feel like you could catch two or three times the number of fish than usual.

The book is organized into five sections covering casting, presentation, reading water and rigging flies. The fifth section is a general overview. Each chapter contains some of the book’s 250 tips that are written in a direct yet conversational style. Each tip is written by either Charlie or Kirk and provides a unique perspective and point of view on each subject.

If you’ve never been fly fishing before, you may struggle with The Little Red Book of Fly Fishing. You will need some context to understand the tips and tricks contained in the book. It’s important to get out on the water, make a few mistakes and learn some hard-knock lessons before you take tips from Deeter and Meyers.

However, this book is highly recommendable to anybody who’s on there way to becoming experienced fly angler.

The Orvis Fly-Fishing Guide has served as a classic book for anglers for the last three decades. This much-loved instructional book is a favorite amongst anglers who want to learn the ins and outs of fly fishing.

The Orvis Fly-Fishing Guide was first published in 1984 and has sold more than 300,000 copies, helping many anglers improve their skills on the water. Now, decades later, the book has been revised to become a better resource than ever.

Fly fishing has changed a lot since the early ’80s. Everything from rod designs, strategies and the state of watersheds has undergone dramatic change. Many anglers prefer graphite rods, new fish species have emerged and anglers have a responsibility to step up and preserve resources and fish populations.

Fortunately, Rosenbauer fine-tuned the revised masterpiece to fit this sport that has undergone a lot of modern changes.

Now, we can enjoy new strategies, updated chapters and expanded tips for the modern era. Also, the revised edition offers anglers updated photos that give the angler a clearer i9dea of everything from flies to knots and how to identify different species.