TAKING TROUT: GOOD, SOLID, PRACTICAL ADVICE FOR FLY FISHING STREAMS AND STILL WATERS. By Dave Hughes.

2002 1st edition. 8vo (158 x 235mm). Ppx,211 + 1pp ad. Not illustrated, bibliography. Two-tone yellow and red paper-covered boards, spine titled in gilt.

The author suggests a simplified approach to flyfishing for trout. "For an era, many fishers consciously or unconsciously intentionally complicated the sport as much for the fun of that very complication... as for practical result. While today's angler may not be greatly different, still there has been a shift. Catching fish remains essential and the process of learning how to do so remains complicated, but, at the same time, simplicity... is honored increasingly by today's anglers not merely as a life-philosophy but also as a strategy and tactic. ...This is the spirit of Taking Trout, a collection of chapters on angling that, not despite, but rather through Hughes' simplifying practical advice, honors the credo that there is more to fishing than fishing." (Publisher's note). Chapters include:- Reading water, finding trout; Searching for trout; The essential part of presentation; Presentation to rising trout; Fruitful hesitations; Bank water; Short-line dry fly; Slack line and the dry fly; Subsurface situations and solutions; Nymphs on the swing; Slicks in riffled water; Early-season streamer tactics; Wet flies and wet-fly fishing; Soft-hackle success; Poking at pockets: the upstream approach; Poking at pockets: the downstream approach; Fishing stairsteps; A half-solved mystery; Stillwater strategy; Trout on the bottom of the shallows; The portability of a home lake; Rod selection for trout fishing; Traveling trout flies; Minimum kit; Old good stuff; Getting it together; Remaining ready; Spike camping for fly fishing; Applied mountain biking; The value of revisitation; The angling pace; Fly selection simplified; Looking at little things; When a fly is not what it seems; Insect identification: what is a useful level?