Fly Fishing for Dummies (Paperback)

~ (Author) "If you're reading this book, you probably have some interest in catching fish..." (more)
Key Phrases: most fly rodders, backhand cast, line world record, New York, Green Drake, Woolly Bugger (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For the unschooled, fly-fishing can appear impossibly difficult and otherworldly, the province of tweedy sportsmen with enough time and money to look credible on the water. But as Peter Kaminsky explains in the opening chapter, this graceful method of catching fish doesn't require "the touch of a surgeon, the body mechanics of Tiger Woods, and the spirit of a Zen master." What it does require is a little dedication and good instruction--and Fly Fishing for Dummies delivers on the latter. This crash-course tutorial removes the mystery with chapters on gear, flies, casting, and fishing strategies. There's even a chapter on some of the great North American trout rivers. And the tone is far from tweedy, with plenty of good humor and trivia mixed into the excellent info. --Langdon Cook, Sports & Outdoors editor

Product Description

Fishing is one of those areas in life in which you can keep improving as you grow older (and wiser). Steeped in tradition, fly fishing -- where the weight of your fishing line carries the fly, instead of the weight of your sinker, lure, or bait carrying the line -- is easier than Isaak Walton made it sound in The Compleat Angler (published in 1653), the forerunner to today's all-purpose fishing books. To master the art (and the science) of fly rodding, all you need is a rod, a few flies, some water, and a copy of Fly Fishing For Dummies.

Whether you're a novice or a veteran angler, here are all the tips and tricks for choosing the right kind of gear; finding out how and where to catch freshwater and saltwater fish; practicing the art of tying flies; and discovering how to read the water, wade, cast, and (finally) land yourself a whopper.

Peter Kaminsky, author of Fishing For Dummies and the outdoor columnist for The New York Times since 1985, was hooked on fly fishing after landing his first catch (a 30-pound grouper). He puts his angling savvy and know-how into Fly Fishing For Dummies, which is packed with more than 150 illustrations and the author's sage advice, down-to-earth language, and relentless, good-humored wit. In no time, you'll be tying Woolly Buggers, Ausable Wulffs, Maribou Mickeys, Clowser's Minnows, and Griffith's Gnats, and will be reeling in those fat rainbow trout, largemouth bass, and fresh Atlantic or Pacific salmon to your heart's content!

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 1 edition (April 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076455073X
• ISBN-13: 978-0764550737
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #189,688 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 98 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't contain the right info for a beginner/novice., November 15, 1999

By A Customer

As a complete novice to fly fishing, I bought this book hoping that it would give me all the info I needed to get started. Unfortunately, it didn't.

I don't really understand what the author had in mind when writing this book - it's obviously targeted at the beginner/novice, but doesn't have nearly enough info in some areas to get a beginner going, and at the same time has lots of extraneous info that's of absolutely no use to a beginner.

Specifically, the section on casting is woefully insufficient for someone who's never cast a flyrod before (just a few pages) and there's absolutely no information at all on what to do after you're got your fly out there. Do you cast upstream or down? let it drift or retrieve it? how fast? How to fish dries vs. wets vs. streamers vs. nymphs? Nothing. Nada. Zero.

At the same time, the author devotes 60 pages to fly tying. Now I suppose that folks who get involved in flyfishing may want to start tying their own flies at some point, but is it really appropriate to have 60 pages of step-by-step instructions on how to tie 12 different flies in a book targeted towards folks who've never fly fished before?

Overall, I can't recommend this book to anyone - if you're a beginner it won't tell you what you need to know to get started, and if you're more experienced you already know 90% of what's in here.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Flyfishing for Dummies Review#1, July 10, 2001

By A Customer

When I first started to flyfish back in the day, this was the only guide I had to get me started. Fortunately, it gave me the first step I needed to have the confidence to get out there and keep trying to catch bigger and better fish. A few years later I'm still flyfishing and rarely if ever get skunked. Over the years I've read endless amounts of articles, books, you name it, but this one covered everything I needed to know. To this day still haven't learned many other good tips that hadn't already been covered by Kaminsky. I recommend this book to everyone who wants to flyfish but doesn't quite got the hang of it yet.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Falls short for beginners, May 26, 2006

By	Joe (AZ) - See all my reviews

I'm a big fan of the Dummies series but found this one very disappointing. The author goes into excruciating detail about some peripheral parts of fly fishing, while completely glancing over some of the essentials.

Much of the content is anecdotal at best, to the point that it feels like the author is just trying to fill up pages. For instance, he devotes two entire pages to what kind of vest he thinks you should have, and the section on sunglasses is almost laughable. The chapter on "Great Rivers for Trout" across the US belongs in a niche guide and feels hopelessly out of place in a beginner book.

In the mean time, Kaminsky completely skims over the essentials. While there are plenty of lectures about why you should get a case for your rod, the section on casting feels like an afterthought. I find it difficult to believe that the author has ever tried to teach a beginner to cast, nor could any beginner (like myself) learn to cast from his brief explanation. Other areas that left we with a lot of questions include fly selection, how fly fishing is affected by the seasons, and actual fishing strategies and techniques.