All articles from section

Disguising a bead by turning it into a head with multifaceted insect eyes

The Tufty flies saw the light of day because of a need for some heavy metal for the author’s local high and coloured rivers

You will find 15 flies and 36 contributors in this book. You won’t read it to discover new flies. You’ll read it for pure pleasure.

This fly lives up to its name. In fact, silk ribbon is the only material used to tie it, apart from hook, bead and thread

The Lifejacket Nymph is tied with 2mm diameter silicone gasket foam

Introducing a way of making nymph bodies using elastic bead cord and a knotting technique

A scaled-down version of the author’s own Headbanger Caddis, a cased nymph caddis pattern

An upside-down latex worm, which is easy to tie and very efficient in high and dirty water

At the vice no one can hear you scream.

The story about how the Toothpick Stone Clinger was inspired by turning over rocks and taking pictures

The name of this fly is to be taken ad verbatim. You do need a highlighter pen to tie it

Sometimes simple is best. Simple and scruffy in fact. Nick Thomas shows you how to tie a both simple and scruffy fly.

This nymph pattern teaches you how to make a sparkling hackle from organza ribbon – in two different ways even!

US fisherman and fly tyer George Grant came up with a type of nymph where both body and hackle uses special techniques.

My venture into the history and legacy of the classic March Brown led to a whole lot of variations over the theme

I have a dried hare skin, which I have owned for as long as I have tied flies. A lot of flies and a lot of wisdom has come from that skin.

The large mayflies are a summer phenomenon, but it might be worth reading up on off season.

Odonata is the Latin name for the order of dragonflies and damselflies. This article is about them.

This book gives you the opportunity to make a connection with aquatic animals. You can watch these images over and over again. It is also full of information in the texts and pictures.

My heart beats for specialty books rather than general ones, and a large book solely on nymphing is definitely something that stirs my interest. Even a German language one.

Sight fishing for grayling in the clear mountain rivers of Slovakia.

Italy based Romanian fly fisher Lucian Vasies ties an easy, wiggly nymph, which is very efficient for his local black bass - and probably many other species too.

One of the ways to fish small, fast, rocky streams is Czech nymphing with microjigs.

The subtitle "Over 1,000 color photos of techniques and pattern styles" lured me into buying this book from 2001.
125 pages at 10 UK£ or about 16 US$ used made it a no-brainer.
And the subtitle is true enough - of course - because the book has an enormous number of photos, and even though haven't counted, there is probably one thousand or even more.

The book goes through the origin and history of the Boobies and covers a number of Booby fishing techniques

A generic nymph that can do equally well as a stonefly or mayfly nymph as it can a waterboatman or backswimmer

While keeping the profile of the Copper John but using fewer and different materials the Glitter John came about.

Don't let the 4/5 rating fool you. Sticking true to the GFF rating system, the book is good and useful for its intended purpose and just may be the ticket you need to retool your bad fly fishing habits.

Right out of the gate you get a sense this book isn't meant for the fly fisher who views fly fishing as a weekend recreation. Or for the streamer addict. Or for the dry fly purist. This book is for the serious-minded nymphing-oriented angler wishing to dissect, analyze and improve his or her technique.

This is a fly-tying DVD covering 10 very useful patterns for stream fishing. The subtitle does mention chalkstreams, but the flies are very generic and will be very useful in all other kinds of streams and even stillwaters.

No-nonsense fishing flies presented in a clear and appetizing fashion with really excellent pictures

It might seem futile to try to improve one of the world's most proven patterns, but there's room for improvement. Trevor Morgan gives some classics an overhaul.

I've just started watching the third DVD in the series as I write this introduction to the review, and I can only say to those many who want to get into doing fly fishing videos: watch and learn.
In one single minute of introductory footage Niels Vestergaard combines a row of simple but beautifully filmed scenes to illustrate how the angler in these DVDs - Morten Oeland - prepares to go fishing. No time lapses, no effects, no tricks. Just plain old well produced video.

Quiet and easygoing. Entertaining and educating. High quality and Global Class!

If you ever wanted to know about this Czech nymphing style of fishing, which has been talked about so much (OK, let's say hyped) the last 20 years or so, this is a very good place to start.

Match fishing is not very popular in the US. There are a few events such as the Jackson Hole "One Fly" contest, but these are few and far between, and often the purpose of the event is to raise money for environmental purposes or some other similar good cause. The idea of fishing as a team sport - with winners and losers and national pride at stake - has not taken hold here in the United States outside of a few who have participated in international events.

All of a sudden, the new season or a spontaneous fly fishing trip with your best buddy is imminent. At that stage, you may think about ordering flies through an online shop.
Selling flies through the Internet is a growing business. There is a vast number of private and commercial suppliers of flies and a large range of prices and qualities.

You know - the internet is a wonderful thing. (As if you don't know that already). Several years ago I learned of Czech nymphs from an article by Oliver Edwards, so I started tying up a few and posted a tying procedure here on the site. Wouldn't you know that someone in the Czech Republic saw it and wanted to use it in one of his newsletters! Pavel and I exchanged a few notes, and he swapped an article for GFF for my tying procedure. Soon after, he sent over a wonderful book to review, and now I have another. The world has gotten to be a very small place.

I was tying at a show in Roscoe, NY this past Spring when a gentleman approached my table to ask about tying Czech nymphs, referring the article I wrote a couple years ago . Unfortunately I did not have any materials for those flies on that day so I was unable to show him the methods in person, but we did chat for awhile regarding the flies and the tackle and techniques for fishing them. As I am certainly no world authority on the topic, I wish I had a copy of this book to show him so he could learn from the masters.

This is an amazing couple of books!
Volume one has been sitting on my bookshelf for many years and I have had it out many times to check facts about various patterns.
A couple of years ago I bought a used copy of volume two, and even though it hasn't seen as much use as the first book, it does get some attentions now and then. Recently I was handling the books again, and that sparked me to dig out this review, which I started writing for volume one many years ago.

Imagine a fish that takes a fly as readily as a trout, whether it is nymph, a wet fly, or a dry fly. Czech nymph style, wet fly swing, North Country style or upstream dry fly. Now magine that, pound for pound, at least twice as strong as a trout

This page doesn't promise that you will make a million dollar.

It was not a million trout, but 15,000

In the vise, this pattern may not look exciting, but when wet, this fly takes on a whole new personality! It's a simple pattern for complex trout. Be sure to read Steve's "Tips for the Curious Fly Tier" which explains how this pattern came about and

Kasper Mühlbach - GFF's eternal grayling hunter - takes on another challenge from the Lady of the Stream. This time he travels to the Czech Republic to learn from former Czech National Fly Fishing Team member Jan Siman. Does the Eastern European grayling differ from the Swedish one?

This book is on the short list of must reads. No kidding. It's really good.

Black and deadly in appearence, the dark force of in the fly box - this is The Darth Vader Nymph. Get out your light sabres and put your old, scratched Star Wars video in the VCR, and tie some black nymphs.

The most sought after pattern on GFF's search page is John Barr's more than excellent nymph pattern the Copper John. Martin Joergensen describes his version here: how to tie it and fish it. And adds its hillbilly kin the much simpler Copper Joe.

GFF partner Martin Joergensen has let one of his favorite sports events, the bicycling race Tour de France, inspire a way of tying flies. He argues why tying many identical flies can be a good thing - and can be better than tying many different flies.

This could be an article in a series called "Nymphing From Top-to-Bottom: The Untold Secrets". This article covers ways to get a fly to fish deep in the water by adding weight or using different lines and casting or mending techniques.

Does anyone remember the early to mid 90's? The rage in the US, at least among tyers of trout flies, was Polish woven nymphs. Fast forward to the dawn of the new century and these articles and flies have all but disappeared? Were they a fad? What happened?

I tied up a bunch of Czech Nymphs last year following Oliver Edwards' directions. They are easy flies to tie - given the proper materials - and look great. However, as a single point fly, they are outshined by my simple beadhead sparkle squirrel nymphs. I will look for more opportunities to fish them as a team this year sometime.

Sometimes it doesn't pay to do things ahead of time

Mike Hogue drops by and offers us some variations of one of the all time popular trout flies - the Prince Nymph. By adding "a little flash and glamour", we have a few new things to try the next time we're getting skunked and want to try something different.

We're underway

Mass Production, on a Minor Scale

First things first - I really enjoyed this book. So much so, that I've been scouring my mail order catalogs searching for the materials he uses, because I want to add some of his patterns to my fly boxes.

As the title suggests, Shane's book is devoted to mayfly imitations of each major stage - nymph, emerger, adult, and spinner - top to bottom as he says. For each section, he offers up several patterns, each with a introductory essay, step-by-step tying instructions, and a list of variations.

I first heard of - or rather saw - Oliver Edwards videos on a cd that was packaged with the British magazine Fly Fishing & Fly Tying. The cd featured some short cuts from the six tapes. I was shown the video snippets on a computer screen by a friend, and was already at that point impressed and intrigued.

When my VHS copies arrived one afternoon I broke the seal of the top one - not the first as such, as there seemed to be no obvious sequence - and stuck it in my VCR. And I was spellbound. I saw two complete videos that afternoon. And I was supposed to have worked -

A simple and good looking scud pattern from Charles Garwood.

The Pheasant tail nymph is a true classic. The original was tied by Frank Sawyer using only copper thread and phesant tail fibers. This pattern has been elaborated a bit by Charles A.Garwood from North Carolina, and uses peacock herl for the abdomen and regular tying thread.

This fly was inspired by the original Prince Nymph, but modified by Charles Garwood of North Carolina for an easier tie and more visibility.
Says Charlie: "The prince nymph has been with us for a long time! I've simply added flashabou because I found it enhances attraction and because I find it slightly easier to tie than white goose biots. Plus it eliminates the gold braid too. It just simplifies the pattern"

A.K. should be fairly well known. The term 'production fly tyer' is very suitable for him. He counts his flies in hundreds of dozens and has before demonstrated his ability to write books about this kind of tying.
In this book he reveals the contents of his own fly boxes. They contain a lot of brown trout flies - no salt water patterns, no poppers, no bass flies. There are a few hoppers and ants, but apart from that it's mayflies, stoneflies a caddises.

This has been my most successfull trout fly in the autumn of 1995. I've caught most of my trout from a float tube, and I believe that one of the keys to the success of this fly is the fact that it's weighted. This and the fact that it's actually very nymph like tells me that it would probably act fine as a stonefly nymph imitation, and this has given the fly it's name 'My nymph' or 'Mymph' for short.

This is a book that I bought when attending a very well set up fly tying arrangement here in Denmark just after new year, and already at the arrangement I met two of the tyers featured in the book: Oliver Edwards (UK) and Mogens Espersen (Denmark).

When you take into consideration the size and volume of this book: large format and app. 250 pages, and the fact that it 'only' deals with 20 flies, it should be obvious that each fly is described in minute details. And it sure is.

Seriously. This is a book that I like just to touch. The print renders the photos in an excellent quality, and leaves the reader with a feeling that the flies are as textured, translucent and subtle as they actually are.