"True Love and the Woolly Bugger is a thoroughly amusing, manic, and perversely informative book about fishing in several of its most mutant forms." -Tom McGuane
"Dave Ames's book . . . is good-natured fun, filled with insight, a passion for what honest fly fishing really is. He has a sharp eye for quirky nuance that makes simple language dance a wild step."
-John Holt, author of Knee Deep in Montana's Trout Streams
"True Love and the Woolly Bugger is adventurous and funny, and yet also poignant. In short, it's not just a fishing book, but very much like life itself, and well worth reading, even by folks who have never made a cast." -John Barsness, editor of Gray's Sporting Journal and Montana Time
When is "sex, death, and fly fishing" not about the life cycle of an insect? When you read True Love and the Woolly Bugger, which views fly fishing and life through a different lens. In these tales trout, tarpon, and bonefish are skillfully interwoven with all the things-funny, happy, and sad-that happen to Dave Ames's completely unforgettable characters: a laid-back Bahamian fishing guide who stalks "gourmet" food, especially for his American clients; a tattooed, motorcycle-riding, fly-fishing beauty who teaches the hero a thing or two; his fishing buddies . . . a perverse and driven lot who continually push the envelope of sanity and good judgment.
"True Love" takes you to the Bob Marshall Wilderness to fish for grayling and trout, and to learn about enduring love. "The Woolly Bugger" is an odyssey through three decades of fishing and sometimes hard living, from the author's childhood bait fishing to his truly unusual conversion to flies and catch-and-release.
True Love and the Woolly Bugger will captivate you with remarkable stories, remarkably told, and leave you asking for more.