An Advanced Course in Fly Fishing

The mission of The Little Red Book of Fly Fishing was to demystify and un-complicate the tricks and tips that make a great trout fisher. There are no complicated physics lessons in that book. Rather, The Little Red Book of Fly Fishing offered a simple, digestible primer on the basic elements of fly fishing: the cast, presentation, reading water, and selecting flies.

In this, The Little Black Book of Fly Fishing, authors Kirk Deeter and Chris Hunt take you to the next level, building upon what Deeter and Charlie Meyers did in The Little Red Book. The Little Black Book will helps fly fishers build upon what they learned in the Little Red Book. Read this valuable, thought-provoking guidebook, and you'll be at the point where you'll be catching fish when no one else is, and you'll know exactly why you are. Advanced casting, presentation, reading the water, fly selection, and much more, including proper gear selection, are all covered. The table of contents, below, explains it all.

The Little Black Book of Fly Fishing
 
Acknowledgments
 
Foreword
 
Introduction
 
Part 1: CASTING
 

A double-haul is really important, and not just in the salt
Teaching someone new? Start with Tenkara
Everybody needs a casting lesson. Everybody.
Casting longer leaders
‘Casting’ nymphs under indicators
Get a practice rod
How to cast a 15-foot leader (and why you should)
Casting at taillights
The cast killer
Your casting stroke follow joints by size
Challenge your cast
Great casts are the ones that get bit
Score your casts like golf strokes; fewer is better
The sand-save cast
A reach cast is worth a thousand mends
 Five feet short on purpose (the linear false cast)
Be Lefty in the salt, and Rajeff in the fresh
Give yourself a “D”
Beating wind
Don’t out-kick your coverage

 
Part 2: PRESENTATION
 

Fast strip for saltwater predators
A swirl, not a rise
Casting streamers upstream
Carp: Not just for city kids
Step out of your comfort zone
What are the birds after?
The potato chip fakeout
Why natives matter
But I still love brown trout best
Micro-drag: where you stand matters
You’ll never beat a fish into submission
Take it to the lake
Float tubes and garbage cans
Food never attacks fish
A case for the dry-fly snob
Go Deep in the name of fish research
Roll fish for fun
They’re in skinny water for a reason
The cafeteria line
The escape hatch

 
 
 
Part 3: READING WATER (AND FISH)
 

The stripset
Covering water
Skate and twitch big flies in low light
Rod tip down for streamers
Weight an unweighted fly with fly-tying beads instead of split-shot
Urban angling
Get in shape. Stay in shape.
Dry your fly first, apply floatant second
Most fish (and some bugs) face upstream—present accordingly
Head up, game over
Step when you streamer
Babysit your flies
ID the “player” and get after it
Gin clear water
Flat calm water
Developing “TSP” (trout sensory perception)
A fish doesn’t see like humans do
Walk on
The 10 second rule
Like a dog on a leash
Tip up or tip down?
The keys to spotting fish
The full-court press usually fails
Use the whole spice cabinet
River personalities and handshakes
What the cloud layers tell you
Knowing what they are not doing is equally important as knowing what they are
Upwelling v. the straight seam
The speed of the strike is proportionate to the depth of the water (in rivers)
See this, do that

 
Part 4: FLIES
 

UV resin in home-tied flies
Nymphs on the swing
Multi-purpose flies
Sparse for saltwater
UV parachute posts
Tip the fly for tying parachute posts
Caddis: the most dishonest fly ever
Wire or tinsel for dry flies
The “pellet fly” you can feel good about
Practice, practice, practice
Peacock herl … and why it works
The mystery of the Purple Prince Nymph
Profile is everything
The Adams family
Lethal mice
The Mole Fly miracle
Bob Behnke on colors
Terrestrials are opportunity bugs
The end of the duck
Colors change with depth
Un-matching the hatch
The monkey poo fly

 
 
 
Part 5: MISC. (Everything from gear, to fighting fish and angler ethics)
 

Fly reels for trout are just line holders
Fly reels matter for saltwater fish
Faster rods aren’t always better
You get what you pay for
Pride cometh before the fall
Sheet-metal screws
Wire for predators
Quick-dry attire for the flats
ABC. Anything But Cotton
Snip your tippet at an angle
Rod weight depends on fly types
The best loop knot… perfection
7X tippet is BS
Colors and camo above the surface
Guitars and fly rods
Bucket list places
Tiger snakes and long hemostats
It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n roll
Score fishing like cricket
It’s okay to fail
I cheer for the fish