MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM AND KINDRED STUDIES. By G.E.M. Skues (Seaforth and Soforth). Third edition.

(1910) 1950 3rd edition reprint. 8vo (142 x 225mm). Ppxiv,133. Colour frontispiece plate of flies. Brown cloth, spine titled in gilt.

If one had to name a single book which changed the course of fly-fishing, this would probably be it. Published in 1910 when the cult of the dry fly had reached a high point, Minor Tactics threw a sensational spanner in the works. Skues was 53, a successful London solicitor and avid fly-fisher with a razor-keen mind. He refused to follow Mr Halford into the straitjacket of 'Dry Fly Only' practice. Instead Skues demonstrated that upstream nymph fishing for chalk stream trout was based on an old method, as sporting, as demanding and as interesting (if not more so) than fishing dry. The arguments have been smouldering ever since.