HOW TO TIE SALMON FLIES: A TREATISE ON THE METHODS OF TYING THE VARIOUS KINDS OF SALMON FLIES. With illustrated directions, and containing the dressings of forty flies. By Captain Hale, East Lancashire Regiment. First edition.

1892 1st edition. 8vo. (150mm x 230mm). xi pp + 123 pp + colophon + 4 pp advertisements (Walbran, Bartleet, Hardy, Farlows, Braddell). Illustrated with text figures from steel engravings, title-page printed in black and red. Burgundy cloth, titled in gilt on spine and upper board, bevelled edges, top edge gilt.

Hale's text is very practical and is supported by fine illustrations of unusual clarity. "He was a supporter of the then very strong lobby which insisted that a salmon fly had to be 100pct correctly dressed as to originality, colour, position of individual feathers or their fibres, length, and neatness of all materials used, if it was to attract a fish. His instructions for tying on materials are as useful today as they were when they were written, for Hale was able to describe the most difficult or tricky techniques. I would place him at the height of the transition from the early 'drab' flies, through the 'gaudy fly' period which included Hale, to the simplified patterns of today." (John Veniard in his introduction to the FFCL edition).