Post
by Greenwell » Sat Jan 11, 2014 6:36 pm
Fly Tying with Harold Howorth is one of many minor British fly dressing books that seem to belong to a sub-genre peculiar to the UK. I've been collecting these lesser known titles for years and whenever I think I've exhausted the pool, another pops up. Fortunately, they are usually quite inexpensive but some of the more obscure titles are getting harder to find and pricy. Years ago I described these as "cute little books" to Judith Bowman, friend, book seller, and authority on fishing literature. She got a good laugh but used the term herself in some of her catalogs!
Many of these were regional in scope, vanity books, often of low to mid quality in binding and paper, and printed in small numbers, although a number went into more than one printing or edition.
Some of my favorites are the Howorth book, Practical Fly Tying by T.R. Henn, The Art of Fly Dressing by Bill Tagg, Fly Dressing by Bill Davies, Dressing Flies for Trout and Salmon by H.H. Eeles (Great name!), A Handbook of Fly-Tying by Denis H. Ardley, The Flytier's Craft by Mike Shanks, Fly Tying: Principles and Practice by Major Sir Gerald Burrard, Fly-Dressing by J. Bernard, Rough Stream Trout Flies by S.D. (Taff) Price, Descriptive Angling by Pat Castle (a personal favorite) and many, many more too numerous to mention.
Two of the hardest to find of any books I've looked for were both authored by Robert Sharp. Let's Fish the Clyde and Let's Fish Again are almost legendarily scarce even they were published in 1973 and 1985 respectively. The first was a vanity publication and is a fairly attractive little book, but the latter was published posthumously by Sharp's wife and is about the quality of a paperback novel!
While few of these books have endured or have much hope or reason to be republished, every one has had at least some little tidbit of information that I was happy to have learned.