Mastering the Art of Fly Tying is presented as a complete guide to learning to tie flies, going from an absolute beginner and steadily progressing from simple flies right up to a fully dressed salmon fly. As the subtitle implies, the book doesn't just cover trout flies, but also bass, panfish and salmon flies. Unfortunately, while this book has the potential to be useful, it also has some fatal flaws.

The book has a comprehensive introduction to materials, many of which I haven't often seen covered in other books. The materials section is followed by a description of the techniques needed to tie the flies. The techniques section is accompanied by some great black and white illustrations which really enhance the text.

There are instructions to tie 160 flies, culminating in a fully dressed salmon fly, the Orange Parson. The emphasis is definitely on dry flies and large streamers/wet flies. Curiously there are only a handful of nymph patterns. Overall you would definitely say that the flies described are traditional and conventional in style, although there are a few exceptions. Each fly is introduced with a few paragraphs talking about its history, what it represents and how it might be fished. The tying instructions themselves are very wordy, too much so I feel. There is definitely more emphasis on text than pictures.

The book is nicely laid out and well printed on good quality paper. The photography is clear and well reproduced. There is an appendix which talks about preserving roadkill and other "gathered" materials, if that's your thing. There are good indices, a general one and one for the fly patterns.

That's the good stuff. Unfortunately the book also has more than its fair share of bad points.

The most glaring problem is the quality of the tied flies, as well as their presentation in the step-by-steps. First let me say I can appreciate the phenomenal amount of work it must be preparing all the flies and taking the step-by-step photos for a book like this. I don't feel that excuses the poorly tied flies though. Some of the flies are perfectly fine, but they seem to be in the minority. Problems range from poorly finished heads with unclipped bits poking out through the head lacquer (some of them are long enough to be antennae), to stray bits of dubbing and fluff not tidied away before the photo was taken to outright badly tied ugly looking flies. Some of them are ugly. I haven't come across another fly tying book which has so many poorly tied flies in it.

In some of the step-by-step photos the flies look like an explosion in the fly tying section of a fishing shop. To be fair, that is often how my flies look while I'm making them, but when they're being used in a book you expect things to be tidied up a bit. It certainly doesn't help anyone to understand the way the fly is being put together.

There are a number of places in the book where a picture is presented as being of a finished fly, but the caption will read something like "Note: this fly should have legs pointed downward". The step-by-steps might show the fly being tied with one colour floss, and then the last image of the sequence, showing the completed fly, will use a different colour floss. Occasionally the captions are just plain wrong.

One thing which particularly annoys me is that step-by-step photos are numbered but they don't always correspond with the same numbered step in the text. With a book which is as wordy as this, referring to the photos can make things harder to follow rather than easier.

I have a few other quibbles with the book, but they all pale in comparison to the problem of the fly quality.

Overall, while Mastering the Art of Fly Tying does have some good aspects and covers a lot of ground, I can't recommend it. Basically it's spoiled by the poorly tied flies. Beginners are badly served by this, because they don't have a good example to aim for. More experienced tiers wanting to try their hand at trickier salmon and spey flies are in the same boat, and will undoubtedly recognise the poor quality of the examples and perhaps be put off by that. It's a shame, because while the style of the instructions doesn't really suit me, there is some interesting stuff in the book. I can hardly bring myself to pick it up and flick through it though.

Reviewed by Jo Meder, Feb 2008

Book details, as reviewed:
Mastering the Art of Fly Tying
Published in 2007 by Ragged Mountain Press / McGraw-Hill
ISBN 0-07-144455-6
RRP $27.95 USD

Jo Meder (jo@sexyloops.com) lives in New Zealand's South Island on the side of a mountain. Since rediscovering fly fishing a few years ago he's become a hopeless addict and can often be found roaming the banks of both rivers and lakes, supporting his habit through work as a software developer. One day he will catch a fish from his kayak. He likes to cast just because and seeks to pass on the enjoyment of casting in his capacity as an FFF Certified Casting Instructor.