An Advanced Course in Fly Fishing

The mission of The Little Red Book of Fly Fishing was to demystify and un-complicate the tricks and tips that make a great trout fisher. There are no complicated physics lessons in that book. Rather, The Little Red Book of Fly Fishing offered a simple, digestible primer on the basic elements of fly fishing: the cast, presentation, reading water, and selecting flies.

In this, The Little Black Book of Fly Fishing, authors Kirk Deeter and Chris Hunt take you to the next level, building upon what Deeter and Charlie Meyers did in The Little Red Book. The Little Black Book will helps fly fishers build upon what they learned in the Little Red Book. Read this valuable, thought-provoking guidebook, and you'll be at the point where you'll be catching fish when no one else is, and you'll know exactly why you are. Advanced casting, presentation, reading the water, fly selection, and much more, including proper gear selection, are all covered. The table of contents, below, explains it all.

The Little Black Book of Fly Fishing

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

Part 1: CASTING

A double-haul is really important, and not just in the salt

Teaching someone new? Start with Tenkara

Everybody needs a casting lesson. Everybody.

Casting longer leaders

‘Casting’ nymphs under indicators

Get a practice rod

How to cast a 15-foot leader (and why you should)

Casting at taillights

The cast killer

Your casting stroke follow joints by size

Challenge your cast

Great casts are the ones that get bit

Score your casts like golf strokes; fewer is better

The sand-save cast

A reach cast is worth a thousand mends

Five feet short on purpose (the linear false cast)

Be Lefty in the salt, and Rajeff in the fresh

Give yourself a “D”

Beating wind

Don’t out-kick your coverage

Part 2: PRESENTATION

Fast strip for saltwater predators

A swirl, not a rise

Casting streamers upstream

Carp: Not just for city kids

Step out of your comfort zone

What are the birds after?

The potato chip fakeout

Why natives matter

But I still love brown trout best

Micro-drag: where you stand matters

You’ll never beat a fish into submission

Take it to the lake

Float tubes and garbage cans

Food never attacks fish

A case for the dry-fly snob

Go Deep in the name of fish research

Roll fish for fun

They’re in skinny water for a reason

The cafeteria line

The escape hatch

Part 3: READING WATER (AND FISH)

The stripset

Covering water

Skate and twitch big flies in low light

Rod tip down for streamers

Weight an unweighted fly with fly-tying beads instead of split-shot

Urban angling

Get in shape. Stay in shape.

Dry your fly first, apply floatant second

Most fish (and some bugs) face upstream—present accordingly

Head up, game over

Step when you streamer

Babysit your flies

ID the “player” and get after it

Gin clear water

Flat calm water

Developing “TSP” (trout sensory perception)

A fish doesn’t see like humans do

Walk on

The 10 second rule

Like a dog on a leash

Tip up or tip down?

The keys to spotting fish

The full-court press usually fails

Use the whole spice cabinet

River personalities and handshakes

What the cloud layers tell you

Knowing what they are not doing is equally important as knowing what they are

Upwelling v. the straight seam

The speed of the strike is proportionate to the depth of the water (in rivers)

See this, do that

Part 4: FLIES

UV resin in home-tied flies

Nymphs on the swing

Multi-purpose flies

Sparse for saltwater

UV parachute posts

Tip the fly for tying parachute posts

Caddis: the most dishonest fly ever

Wire or tinsel for dry flies

The “pellet fly” you can feel good about

Practice, practice, practice

Peacock herl … and why it works

The mystery of the Purple Prince Nymph

Profile is everything

The Adams family

Lethal mice

The Mole Fly miracle

Bob Behnke on colors

Terrestrials are opportunity bugs

The end of the duck

Colors change with depth

Un-matching the hatch

The monkey poo fly

Part 5: MISC. (Everything from gear, to fighting fish and angler ethics)

Fly reels for trout are just line holders

Fly reels matter for saltwater fish

Faster rods aren’t always better

You get what you pay for

Pride cometh before the fall

Sheet-metal screws

Wire for predators

Quick-dry attire for the flats

ABC. Anything But Cotton

Snip your tippet at an angle

Rod weight depends on fly types

The best loop knot… perfection

7X tippet is BS

Colors and camo above the surface

Guitars and fly rods

Bucket list places

Tiger snakes and long hemostats

It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n roll

Score fishing like cricket

It’s okay to fail

I cheer for the fish