You might expect a fishing book to start out with how to rig your fly rod and save the more interesting part about how to catch a fish for later. I like the more interesting part first - catching the fish. Then, just to give you something else to think about, I include How to rig your fly rod and other extraneous but useful information, some of which is painful, like knots, at the end. Yes, there are knots in this book.

Why buy this book? Because this book is the best book for Joe Schmo of his wife Shirley. It’s simple and different. This book uses a lot of cartoon illustrations. Joe Schmo likes cartoons. If you don’t like cartoons, you’ll probably not like this book. I wrote this book to put into writing what I commonly tell Joe Schmo (or Shirley) on a daily basis in my fly shop here in Lake George, Colorado. There are tons of novice people with a fly rod who have taken and lesson or two and are now trying to go on their own.

I realize it takes time to develop specific skills for fly fishing and I also realize the quandary that Joe Schmo might only have a limited number of hours to catch a fish. He’s probably not intending to change his life and become a preeminent fly fishing master, (though, he just might. One never knows where life’s passion will lead you.) Not today, though. Today, Joe Schmo has four hours to catch a fish that he can’t see. This isn’t a hopeless situation. Have heart, Joe! You can still catch a wily trout even if you can’t see it. This book should give you some easy tactics for catching a wily trout in technical water (by that, I mean a picky fish in a high-use area, such as we have here in South Park, Colorado at Eleven Mile Canyon and the Dream Stream.)

I decided to put my daily advice in writing, starting the book with walking up to the stream and fishing, then putting the parts about picking a rod and selecting flies at the end. That may seem out of order to you but that’s how I operate: I go and do things first. Afterward, seek the details. Joe Schmo can take the rod he just bought (he’ll call it a pole for a while) from a general sporting goods store and if he reads the first chapter of this book, he may have a good chance at catching a fish. Maybe even a big fish.