Foreword
About 20 years ago, I summarized the basic idea behind a short book I wrote on fly fishing in this way: "An artificial fly is nothing more than an inert mass of fur and feather; all the life and natural behavior that the fish perceives in it have been breathed into it by the artist who holds the rod."
I recall that the modest little book was unexpectedly successful. While it held no previously untold secrets and revealed no startling knowledge, I believe its success was due to the fact that it undertook to explain fully but in a simple and direct manner the elements needed to learn how to fly-fish. The book you hold in your hands today has been written with the same basic goal, but it uses far more sophisticated means. As you will see by leafing through the pages, every effort has been made to make it easy to understand.
We've attempted to discuss each area as completely as we could, while taking care to avoid getting lost in purely subjective preferences. We wanted the text to provide a complete overview of each subject while keeping the concepts straightforward and presenting them as concisely as possible. Despite the amount of information contained in these pages, we set a goal of ensuring that it would be easy to read.
The wealth of useful illustrations in this book corresponds almost perfectly to the text. In fact, simply studying the graphics is probably enough for the reader to understand most of the ideas discussed in each chapter. We believe that we can go so far as to say that after studying this book, complete neophytes will have all the knowledge they need to become accomplished at fly fishing, provided they actually spend some time by the water in the course of the learning process. But this book is not intended only for beginners-even experienced anglers will find innovative ways of doing things, new ideas and a general approach to fly fishing that will round out their own knowledge.
As we approach the 21st century, fly fishing is becoming one of the outdoor activities to inspire a growing hunger for information and new approaches. We wanted to make this book an instrument to help satisfy these desires.
Jeannot Ruel
