HOW TO TIE SALMON FLIES: A TREATISE ON THE METHODS OF TYING THE VARIOUS KINDS OF SALMON FLIES. With illustrated directions. By Major J.H. Hale, (East Lancashire Regiment). Second edition revised. With an appendix giving the dressings of 361 salmon flies.

(1892) 1919 2nd edition. 12mo (100 x 165mm). xii pp + 189 pp + 3 pp advertisements. Illustrated with text figures from engravings. Quarter blue cloth over light blue paper-covered boards, spine titled in black.

For the second edition the publisher, R.B. Marston, extended the list of flies to 361, taking the majority from J.J. Hardy's Salmon Fishing (1907). 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).