The Fly-Tying Bible: 100 Deadly Trout and Salmon Flies in Step-by-Step Photographs

I am an avid fly fishermen and fly tyer. I have purchased over 40 books on fly tying over the years and this book "The Fly Tying Bible" by Peter Gathercole, is simply the best.

Reasons for this statement: 1. Easy to read and follow and in color 2. The book is in a spiral binder format for easy reading on your tying table or desk 3. step by step pattern sequence for each pattern with pictures to compliment 4. Icons of types of fish (ex. rainbow, brown trout, grayling, etc.) by each pattern so the tyer knows which pattern attracts each individual fish species 5. the patterns are categorized per each fly pattern category (ex. dry flies, nymphs, streamers, etc.)

I have given this book to over a dozen friend and family tyers and they all love this book. I highly recommend this book for all levels of tyers.

Anthony K.

There are many out there who would recommend this book to beginners. While it certainly does have the information to help a beginner get on their feet when it comes to fly tying, this is more of a book to pick up when you have the basic skills and knowledge of materials down. This is more of a book of patterns than it is an introduction that will truly teach you the skills you need to tie flies. It's important to have a reasonable understanding of materials and methods before you can just jump right in and tie these flies up. This book, while it tries to go into the basics, just doesn't have the depth to truly help the beginner fly tier.

That said, it's an excellent book. It will give you the recipes for virtually all the most important patterns out there and even some of the lesser known ones. I love that it classifies them by types of fish each fly is for and provides a reference to this information in the back of the book. It's broken out into very logical sections - dry flies, nymphs, streamers, hairwings and wet flies. The information for each fly pattern is easily accessible and quick to scan through for inspiration. For a serious beginner or even a seasoned tier, this is probably one of the most important books to have on your tying desk. Do yourself the favor and get the spiral bound version, it's worth it. Although this book focuses primarily on the freshwater trout flies, you'll find a few for char, sea trout, grayling and salmon. All of the information is presented beautifully and in a very accessible manner.

Aside from the fact that it's not a true beginners book, I do have a few critiques about it. First, there are some inaccuracies with the difficulty ratings for each fly. For example, the book presents the wooly bugger and the F-Fly as three and four star rated difficulty. This can't be right because they're some of the simplest flies to tie. Second, I wish he would have provided more accurate and consistent details about hook selection. Although I realize there's a creative aspect to this, some patterns will just say "10-16 hook" when it should probably say wet-hook or dry-hook. I would also agree with some of the critical reviews that he calls for a great variety of materials. What's important to know, and isn't explained, is that you can easily substitute similar materials. (You don't HAVE to get yellow antron, you can use nearly any yellow dubbing as long as you understand what's good for dry versus wet.) For the beginner, the six pictures per fly may not be sufficient to get you from beginning to end, although he does verbally explain each step.

Even with all that, it's still probably one of the most important books to have in your arsenal.

I have both books by this author. They are very instructive and for the novice the first one is especially good as there are more individual steps illustrated. But each new fly described calls for nearly a completely different set of tying materials that the novice just won't have. One can spend literally hundreds of dollars just acquiring all of the different hackle types and colors, never mind the other materials.

This is a really interesting and relatively inexpensive fly tying book. My dad recently had quadruple bypass surgery and he was laid up at home for several months and was really getting impatient and bored. I bought him all the stuff he needed to get started with tying flies again like he used to when I was a kid. He used this book and tied several flies before recovering enough to get out fishing again.

Nice pictures and material lists, but for a novice like me it would have been helpful to me to have had included a hook number or at a least hook type.

I love these Barron's fly tying books. The size of the book is perfect; the color photos are large, sharp and bright; and the step by step instructions are very clear. The lay flat binding format is genius.

I cannot recommend this book enough, I only wish that there were more in the series.

The Fly-Tying Bible: 100 Deadly Trout and Salmon Flies by Peter Gathercole is an excellent Fly tying book. I am always searching for the best Fly tying books I can find. As far as Fly tying books goes this is one of the best I have seen. To start off with this book covers a lot of flies 100 in all. In addition it has a spiral binding which I feel is mandatory for a fly tying book so you can open it up as you tie. The description of each fly is on two pages, highlighting the most important parts. On the first page it gives a detailed picture of the fly as well as details of the material needed to make the fly; it also tells of the type of fish that this fly would presumably be used to catch. In addition it has a little hourglass measurement on how hard each fly is to tie. As far as the general info on the book it has the usual Pictures in the front to show particular techniques as well as the basic tools and material used. I do wish that they had a fly selector with pictures of all the flies in this book on one page similar to there beginner book. Over all this is one of the best books I have ever seen on fly tying I hope they make another in this series.

This spiral- bound book is one of my favorites for patterns that consitently catch fish. Very simple reading, organized by the style of fly. I particularly like the displaying of the difficulty of tying a particular fly in a "out of 5 stars" system. I also like that it displays the specific species the fly has been found to work for. The only things I am left wanting from this book are: a companion with 100 more patterns, and graphics for other gamefish that the flies are (or are not) effective on.

Book has good details, but lacks many of the flies I normally use and that are found in other books.

Nice bench side guide, with great photos of the completed flies and step by step sequences. Good (but brief) general information section covering materials and basic technique. This book is more like a manual than a encyclopedic reference like the Leeson book. The spiral binding makes it very handy to use in the confines of a small bench like mine. I really like this book and would recommend it.