This general
annotated bibliography page provides an overview of notable and not so notable works in the English language regarding the sport of
fly fishing
Fly fishing is an angling method that uses a light-weight lure—called an artificial fly—to catch fish. The fly is cast using a fly rod, reel, and specialized weighted line. The light weight requires casting techniques significantly diffe ...
, listed by year of first publication. Although not all the listed books are devoted exclusively to fly fishing, all these titles contain significant fly fishing content. The focus of the present page is on classic general texts on fly fishing and its history, together with notable public or university library collections dedicated to fly fishing.
* For readability, the bibliography is contained in three separate lists. For books primarily dedicated to
fly tying
Fly tying (also historically referred to in England as dressing flies) is the process of producing an artificial fly used by fly fishing anglers to catch fish. Fly tying is a manual process done by a single individual using hand tools and a va ...
, fly tackle, regional guides, memoirs, stories and fly fishing fiction see: ''
Bibliography of fly fishing (fly tying, stories, fiction)
This annotated bibliography is intended to list both notable and not so notable works of English language, non-fiction and fiction related to the sport of fly fishing listed by year published. Although 100% of any book listed is not necessarily d ...
''.
* For species related fly fishing literature see: ''
Bibliography of fly fishing (species related)''.
Annotations
Annotations may reflect descriptive comments from the book's dust jacket, third party reviews or personal, descriptive and qualitative comments by individuals who have read the book. Some older works have links to online versions in the
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
or
Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
.
Notable fly-fishing library collections
* '
The Western Washington University Fly Fishing Collection'',
Bellingham, Washington
Bellingham ( ) is the most populous city in, and county seat of Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. It lies south of the U.S.–Canada border in between two major cities of the Pacific Northwest: Vancouver, British Columbia (locat ...
* '
Kienbusch Angling Collection'',
Princeton University Library
Princeton University Library is the main library system of Princeton University. With holdings of more than 7 million books, 6 million microforms, and 48,000 linear feet of manuscripts, it is among the largest libraries in the world by number of ...
,
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...
* The Kenneth H. Rockey Angling Collection, Princeton University Library
* The Daniel B. Fearing Collection,
Houghton Library
Houghton Library, on the south side of Harvard Yard adjacent to Widener Library, is Harvard University's primary repository for rare books and manuscripts. It is part of the Harvard College Library, the library system of Harvard's Faculty of ...
,
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
* The LaFontaine Angling Collection,
University of Wyoming
The University of Wyoming (UW) is a public land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, and opened in September 1887. The University of Wyoming ...
's
American Heritage Center
The American Heritage Center is the University of Wyoming's repository of manuscripts, rare books, and the university archives. Its collections focus on Wyoming
Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United ...
, Rare Book Collection,
Laramie, Wyoming
Laramie is a city in and the county seat of Albany County, Wyoming, United States. The population was estimated 32,711 in 2019, making it the third-largest city in Wyoming after Cheyenne and Casper. Located on the Laramie River in southeastern ...
Library website* Frederick and Clara Toppan Angling Book Collection, University of Wyoming's American Heritage Center, Rare Book Collection
*
American Museum of Fly Fishing
The American Museum of Fly Fishing is a museum in Manchester, Vermont, United States, that preserves and exhibits artifacts related to American angling.
Exhibits and collections
The American Museum of Fly Fishing was established in 1968 in Manc ...
,
Manchester, Vermont
Manchester is a town in, and one of two shire towns (county seats) of, Bennington County, Vermont. The population was 4,484 at the 2020 census.
Manchester Village, an incorporated village, and Manchester Center are settlement centers within t ...
, The museum's library ranks as one of the largest public collections of fly-fishing books in America
Museum website* '
'', Clarke Historical Library,
Central Michigan University,
Mount Pleasant, Michigan
Mount Pleasant is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. Located in Central Michigan, the city is the county seat of Isabella County, Michigan, Isabella County. The population was 21,688 as of the 2020 United States census. It is surrounded by Unio ...
* '
Harry Hawthorn Foundation Collection'',
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
,
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
,
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
* '
Milne Angling Collection'',
University of New Hampshire
The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, m ...
Library,
Durham, New Hampshire
* '
George Harvey Fly-Fishing Literature Collection'',
Penn State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State became ...
Life Sciences Library,
State College, Pennsylvania
State College is a home rule municipality in Centre County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is a college town, dominated economically, culturally and demographically by the presence of the University Park campus of the Pennsylvania Sta ...
*
Trout & Salmonid Collection at Montana State University
The Trout and Salmonid Collection is a special collection of literature and archives in the Montana State University Library's Merrill G. Burlingame Special Collections Library. The collection is also known as The Bud Lilly Trout and Salmonid Bib ...
,
Montana State University
Montana State University (MSU) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Bozeman, Montana. It is the state's largest university. MSU offers baccalaureate degrees in 60 fields, master's degrees in 6 ...
,
Bozeman, Montana
** Contains the following notable collections:
*** Strung, Norman (Literary manuscripts and correspondence, 1966–1982)
*** Pellicane, Alfred T. (Papers, 1962–2000)
*** Mitchell, Harry B. (Papers, 1953–1965)
***
Agassiz, Louis (Letters, 1854–1858)
*** Salmon Poisoning Research Collection (Papers, 1923–1999)
*** Nick Lyons Ephemera Collection (Corporate records and personal papers, 1932–2005)
***
Behnke, Robert J. (Papers, 1957–2000)
Angling Oral History Collection
15th-century texts
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17th-century texts
* The Secrets of Angling contains the first known illustration of an
artificial fly. Denny's book was reprinted extensively in the 19th century.
*
Izaak Walton did not profess to be an expert with the fly; the fly fishing in his first edition was contributed by Thomas Barker, a retired cook and humorist, who produced a treatise of his own in 1659. In the last edition a second part was added by his friend Charles Cotton, who took up Venator where Walton had left him and completed his instruction in fly fishing and the making of flies.
* Extensively cited in Herd's ''The Fly'', Venables work provides great insight into the fly tackle and techniques being used in the 17th century
18th-century texts
*
Online Version (7th Edition – 1790) the Brookes text, which went through seven editions in the late 18th century, are extremely important in closing the gap of knowledge about fly fishing from the time of Walton to the early 19th century. Brookes is also the first to make written references to fly fishing in saltwater.
* this work first appeared in 1787 and ran through 13 editions.
19th-century texts
* ''Angling in All Its Branches'' was one of the first works to address Fly fishing for Salmon and tying salmon flies. Taylor was the first fly fishing author to mention the use of a fly tying vice.
[
* Bainbridge was one of the first authors to use color plates and ''The Fly Fisher's Guide'' contains numerous plates showing fly patterns, materials and tying techniques.][
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* Dr. Andrew Herd credits Rennie with being the first author to describe the complicated methods of producing fly hooks in the 19th century.
*
* this 231 page, well illustrated treatment of British stream insects of importance to the trout and grayling angler laid the foundation for the detailed works on artificial fly imitation theory that followed for the next 100 years, , see also ]The Fly-fisher's Entomology
''The Fly-Fisher's Entomology, Illustrated by Coloured Representations of the Natural and Artificial Insect and Accompanied by a Few Observations and Instructions Relative to Trout-and-Grayling Fishing'', first published in 1836 by Alfred Ronald ...
and Alfred Ronalds.
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* ''The Art of Angling'' was in print for over 100 years in 16 editions from 1747 to 1854
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Online Version (1st Edition)
Online Version (5th Edition, 1867)
Online Version (8th Edition, 1883)
Online Version (1907 Edition)
* Frank Forrester, the pseudonym for English born Henry William Herbet was one of the most popular sporting writers before the Civil War. He popularized Hunting and Fishing with commercially successful sporting books such as this one,.
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* ''Otter'' was a pseudonym for H. J. Alfred of London.
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* this was Halford's first book, and it launched the opening salvo in the decades long battle pitting fly fishers favoring the floating fly against those endorsing the sunk fly, an argument which today seems as appropriate as the house cook slipping on boxing gloves in preparation to picking out fly droppings from the black pepper. Nine color plates of hand colored flies. One color chart. Text illustrations. Six 19th century American fly patterns laid in. 136 pp. including index, see also Floating Flies and How to Dress Them
''Floating Flies and How to Dress Them'' - ''A Treatise on the Most Modern Methods of Dressing Artificial Flies for Trout and Grayling with Full Illustrated Directions and Containing Ninety Hand-Coloured Engravings of the Most Killing Patterns Tog ...
.
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* a readable but comprehensive discussion of wet fly, dry fly, sea-trout and salmon fly fishing written in an easy, story-telling style. See also Fly Fishing (Grey book) A angling classic
Fly-fishing history, bibliographies and literature reviews
19th century
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20th century
* Dr. Andrew Herd credits Hill with the first attempt to codify the history of fly fishing, albeit Hill's work shows a distinctly British bias and disregard for other European influences. See also A History of Fly Fishing for Trout
''A History of Fly Fishing for Trout'' is a fly fishing book written by John Waller Hills published in London in 1921.
Synopsis
''A History of Fly Fishing for Trout'' is the first book to trace the history of fly fishing from its very beginning, ...
[
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* contains a Chronological Appendix Indicating Landmarks in the Evolution of Angling Literature and Some Prefatory Matters Pertaining to the History of The Harry Hawthorn Foundation for the Inculcation and Propagation of the Principles and Ethics of Fly-Fishing. Contains illustrations.
*
* listed as one of the modern "classics" of angling in the University of New Hampshire Library Milne Angling Collection
* Gingrich, the well known founding editor of ''Esquire'' magazine surveys the major pieces of classic and modern fly fishing literature up through the 1950s. It is an excellent read to get a better understanding of the evolution of the various styles of fly fishing—wet, nymphs, dry, etc. as originally written about by the likes of Halford, Skues, Gordon and Jennings along with many others.
*
* an alphabetical, by author, list of over 2000 titles of American published fishing books with values for collectable copies estimated by the author.
* sponsored by the American Museum of Fly Fishing, Manchester, CT, when Paul Schullery was the managing director, ''Fly Fishing – A History'' is probably the most contemporary and complete treatise on the evolution of fly fishing as it is known today.
* a notable account by Ernest Schwiebert and one of the seminal books on American Fly Fishing clubs.
* while giving due respect to the elders of Fly-Fishing history, Schullery celebrates some lesser-known fisherman and some seldom-appreciated waters, such as the limestone streams of Pennsylvania. He muses on the pursuit of the ever-more perfectly "natural" fly and contrasts that quest with the storied success of the Royal Coachman, perhaps the gaudiest fly ever invented.
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]
21st century
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Biographies
* in 1927, celebrated Canadian author Frank Parker Day wrote his autobiographical reflections on fishing, family, and, more broadly, humanity's place in the natural world. ''The Autobiography of a Fisherman'', a Canadian fly-fishing classic, is a wonderful recollection of one man's life, with characters struggling in a depressed economy, contending with the social pressures of local village life, and responding in one way or the other to the pull of the big city. Day details his early introduction to fishing, which becomes a lifelong passion, at once a 'gentle art' and a 'disease'.
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* the first definitive biography of the father of dry fly fishing, Frederic M. Halford.
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* – autobiography of Lefty Kreh
Bernard "Lefty" Kreh (February 26, 1925 – March 14, 2018) was an American fly fisherman, photographer and fly casting instructor who resided most recently in Hunt Valley, Maryland.Budryk, Peter. "So Just Who is Lefty Kreh?"http://fishwithkev.blog ...
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General fly fishing
* 1st US edition of this 1867 book.
*
* New Naturalist
The New Naturalist Library (also known as ''The New Naturalists'') is a series of books published by Collins in the United Kingdom, on a variety of natural history topics relevant to the British Isles. The aim of the series at the start was: "T ...
#23
* A modern guide to fly fishing in reservoirs and lakes.
* more on the fishing life than how to, but much information about light tackle fly fishing from the founding editor of Esquire. Contains useful bibliographic references to other fly fishing literature.
* a general treatise on the basics of freshwater, warmwater and saltwater fly fishing and tackle.
* a compendium of articles by top fly fishing experts on the various aspects of freshwater, warmwater and saltwater fly fishing and tackle. Sponsored by the Cortland Line Company.
* a beautiful compilation of vignettes on fly fishing accompanied by excellent photography of fly fishing experiences.
*
* this is a twenty-five volume set published by Kreh and other authors covers almost every aspect of the sport of fly fishing. Contains the following titles:
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Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bibliography Of Fly Fishing
Fly fishing literature
Fly fishing
Fly fishing is an angling method that uses a light-weight lure—called an artificial fly—to catch fish. The fly is cast using a fly rod, reel, and specialized weighted line. The light weight requires casting techniques significantly diffe ...
Recreational fishing-related lists