Customer Reviews

A Perfect Fish: Illusions in Fly Tying

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A perfect fish is a remarkable accomplishment. Kenney Abrames manages to smoothly meld fly-tying and flyfishing technique, with philosophy and art. The narrative is poetic yet descriptive. The art is alive. The flyfishing information is incredibly interspersed with thoughts on technique, and philosophy. A book you can read and re-read and continue to gain insight and information. Its all there. Not a word or phrase is wasted. A must for any saltwater angler.

Haig-Brown in his wrtittings showed how to put one's essence in to fooling fish. While most books on fly tying give information on the mechanics Ken Abrames in this book shows how to incorporate your essence and hopes into the creation of your flies and your approach to the perfect fish, R.L.S. striped bass. Definately worth reading more than once.

Among other things the perfect fish is about fly fishing for striped bass.The perfect fish was created by an artist and therefore has the quirkiness of something birthed from an artists mind. In it kenny gives us his opinions about how to tie flies and shows us that a fly is a little piece of art. He paints scenes of the predator1s world and the world of the baitfish. He intimates on many things, color and light being favorite topics, and relates those intimations to the act of fishing. His thinking is good thinking and it is unique thinking, in my opinion. Through his prose as well as his paintings, which decorate this colorful book, he implores us to agree with his belief that the striped bass is not just a stupid fish, but a perfect fish. Perhaps not everyone can see the magic of what Kenny is saying. The book is dense and by that I mean there1s a lot in there and some of it is pretty profound. A little must be read and then digested and read again, it is a book with which you must have patience. Perhaps kenny1s central theme concerns making flies that are impressions of what they are imitating as opposed to realistic imitations. "What a fish responds or reacts to in a fly," kenny says, "is not exact physical likeness but the illusion of life." Kenny creates flies that give "impressions" of what the bait looks like and argues that impressionistic representations work better, catch more fish. As a painter myself I found some of kenny's philosophies to be helpful not only to my fly fishing but in considering the scope of my life. His thoughts involve stripping ourselves of "cultural conditioning" so we can more fully observe the world around us, perhaps with the innocence of a child."When tying squid flies," kenny says, "it is hard to resist emphasizing their tentacles or their eyes because it is how we have been taught to view them since childhood. When we see them as they actually appear in the water they are quite different than what cultural conditioning says they are." I liked this book when I first flipped through it because it reminded me of times I'd spent with my father pulling a drag net through the mouth of a tidal creek and seeing all the life there, all the shiners, mummichogs, and small green crabs. These crawling swimming things that had peaked my early curiosities while standing in the marsh are the food of the striped bass and are things that kenny portrays beautifully.

When your standing in the water at sunrise and looking out over the horizon your saying to yourself, 'today is the day I'm going to remember what Kenny said in his book", Of course you don't because when you read carefully Kenny says, 'It's not how it's why you fish'.It's why we fish that he talks about in this wonderful account of his world and ours. When my grandson asks why I didn't catch any fish today or why I didn't bring them home, I now know better my ans. Thanks, Kenny.

This is a superb book on tying more sophisticated salt water flies. This is not a book for beginners. Only buy it if you have spent some time at the vise/bench. If you have, you will not be disappointed. In addition to reviewing flies and how to tie them, it covers a lot of material on fish feeding habits, habitats and presentation.