MOTTRAM ON FLY-FISHING MYSTERIES: INNOVATIONS OF A SCIENTIST ANGLER. Selected and introduced by Paul Schullery.

2009 1st edition thus. 16mo (105 x 159mm). Ppxiv,160. B/w line illustrations, new bibliography, black, decoratively grained end-papers. Powder-blue, decoratively grained paper-covered boards, spine titled in gilt.

Carefully selected excerpts from Mottram's "Fly-fishing: Some New Arts and Mysteries," widely regarded as one of the most innovative fishing books ever written. Mottram was a radiologist. His scientific training gave him great advantages as an investigative trout angler. His fly patterns for nymphs, smuts and "silhouette" duns were years ahead of their time. These patterns date from pre-1915! Mottram's book delves in some depth into all corners of the art of flyfishing and remains as important today as it was ninety years ago. This abridgement retains Mottram's highly amusing chapter "In 2014," where fish of the future are cossetted in highly regulated artificial fisheries and caught and released by anglers who know them individually by names such as 'Brown Beauty.' This of course could never happen in real life! A well-designed and nicely presented new edition which provides an excellent preliminary to further exploration of James Mottram's work.