Martyn White | Thursday, 27 November 2025
This week I’m taking a break from the fly patterns because yesterday, I took delivery of Arthur MacDonald’s new book: Modern Flies & Ancient Lochs. And it’s an absolute stoater!
First of all, it’s a lovely book. It’s nicely bound, the photography is great and reproduced at high quality. The layout is clean, open and reader friendly. I was also quite pleased to discover it’s more than just a pattern/tying book- that would have been fine in itself as Arthur’s patterns are lovely – but this is more than that. Arthur writes about the lochs of the Great Glen, his approach to fishing them and describes the rationale behind his fly design. And he does design them; this is not just adding an extra turn of a different coloured hackle, which others so commonly try to pass off as innovation in their trout flies. No, despite the familiarity of form in some, flies there’s an approach and intention there that can and should be applied far more widely.
The flies and tying sequences are nicely done with a brief description of each style, its origin and application. There aren’t a great many step-by-steps, but Arthur has focused on the more challenging patterns which will help less advanced tiers get to grips with them. The Capercaillie is a fine example of this, it’s an excellent looking, mobile fly that would, I’m certain, have caused some people a fair bit of frustration without the SBS. So even if all you want is a tying book, there’s plenty in here for you to be going on with which might result in some other patterns falling from your rotation or maybe just another fly box going in your loch bag.
I doubt there are any Scottish or Irish fly tiers who haven’t been eagerly anticipating the publication. That is with good reason too, Arthur is a fantastic tier and is an active participant in several online tying communities (which have seen a lot of people posting pictures of his patterns in the couple of weeks since the Book came out) as well as popping up in magazines now and then too. Although Arthur has developed his tying style and patterns on the highland lochs of Scotland this book should be of interest to anyone who ties flies wherever they are in the world.
If you want a copy (you do) you can get one from www.robdenson.co.uk . I wouldn’t hang around though as I doubt they’ll last long!