Phil, I hope that you didn't think that I was implying that Skues was/is the only good source of angling advice; nothing could be further from the truth. Greenwell John, My comment about Skues not being the only source of good information was in response to WiFlyfisher John's earlier comment. He kn...

Phil, wait a minute... what about " What the trout said "? John John, Well, Skues is not the only source of good advice. Datus Proper's What the Trout Said remains, in my opinion, the single best book ever published on fly *design*. And, the book does not contain even one fly pattern! The...

Winter is a time to read books and tie flies. I have lately been re-reading a bit of G.E.M. Skues, whose insights are as relevant today as they were when he first laid pen to paper. The paragraphs below were first published in The Fishing Gazette and later in his book Silk, Fur and Feather . Written...

WiFlyfisher wrote: ↑Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:06 am Besides, that will make PhilA happy.

John,
I am indeed happy. I was fearing tungsten beads and a right-angled jig hook.
Phil

John, I re-read Schullery's history of the eyed hook last night. Aldam's A Quaint Treatise figures quite prominently! Schullery references Tony Hayter ( F.M. Halford and the Dry-Fly Revolution ), who wrote that Hall's eyed hooks were inspired by two especially finely made hooks contained in A Quaint...

I would like to discuss fly tying books here on the Forum. I wonder if there would be any interest. John, I would definitely be interested in discussing fly tying books. Acquiring and reading such books has been a passion -- some might say obsession -- of mine for many years. By the way, I'm now ba...

I took a look at my copy of Aldam's "Quaint Treatise" and it is interesting to see that the early Halls eyed hooks that the two Ogdan mayflies are dressed on are slightly heavier in the wire than the sneck bend hooks the other flies in the book are on. John, You own a copy of Flees and th...

John, I'm hundreds of miles away from my dependable memory (=fly tying books!), but didn't drawn silkworm gut from Spain overtake the fly fishing world in the late 1700s or early 1800s (not late 1800s)? Wasn't gut the leader / tippet of choice during much of the "golden age" of the 1800s, ...

John, Thank you for your insights about these wonderful books. Concerning Wheatley's eyed hooks, editions of The Compleat Angler as early as 1760 have illustrations of Green Drakes and Dun Cuts tied on eyed hooks. My understanding is that the rise of eyed hooks in the late 1800s resulted from advanc...

A few other tidbits about Alfred Ronalds... Ronalds' beautiful fly plates showing images (colored engravings in his pre-photography case) side-by-side with an appropriate imitation became a standard for quality fly tying books that persists today. Ronalds understood the physics of refraction and ref...