Books on and about fishing are surely one of the best ways to pass the time between one day's fishing and the next and, more important, in countries where there is a close season, reading is the best palliative to the boredom and frustration of months away from one's favourite river or stream.

American fishing magazines and their book reviewers have always made much more of their reviews than English magazines. The latter magazines' reviews usually extend to about 100 to 150 words, if you are lucky. If asked, I am sure that the editors would say that they cannot justify giving book reviews any more space. One of the benefits of Internet publishing is that space is, almost, limitless.

At the start of this piece I commented that many people think that you cannot learn to fish from a book. I could not disagree more strongly. You can get a lot of the basics from a good book. I have picked up some useful piece of information in almost every book that I have read. Sometimes it may be just a hint of how to solve a problem, other times a really significant nugget of information. The information is there if you look for it and are prepared to accept it. Learning to fish from a book is the essence of this review, as the book is Flyfishing For Dummies, A Reference for the Rest of Us, by Peter Kaminsky, a 354-page paperback, another in the For Dummies series.

While this book is not a work of great literature, it strikes me as being a great book for the raw beginner or improver. It is a book to read a section at a time. As saltwater fly fishing grows in popularity, the two chapters on this subject, Saltwater Fish and Saltwater Baits and Flies That Work will be a help to the tyro saltwater fly rodder. The following quotation from the Introduction sets the tone of the book very well:

"Forget about what you've heard about fly fishing in the past. If you believe what you read, fly fishing requires the touch of a surgeon, the body mechanics of Tiger Woods, and the spirit of a Zen master. I know this isn't true because I am an okay fly fisherman and I fit none of these qualifications. But fly fishing has this aura about it that may have more to do with writers than with fishing. A lot of fly fishermen write about fishing so naturally, they try to make it seem that it is the most demanding and soul-improving method of catching a fish. However, for me, I find that angling with a fly rod is far and away the most pleasant way to fish. In fact, I will go even further than that and say that it is my favourite thing to do - period. ....... having taught many, many people to fly fish over the years, I promise you that I can have you casting and catching fish on your first day. You may not cast very far and you may not catch very many fish, but you will be fly fishing. After that, the rest is just practice."

The book is strong on the background to and atmosphere of fly fishing but it does have one major flaw as will become obvious from this review. Another flawed fishing book that I have read recently was Hooked, Fly Fishing Through Russia by Fen Montaigne. Although I read it all and enjoyed it as a travel story about modern Russia, from a fishing point of view, I lost interest as soon as Montaigne admitted that he had fly fished for only four years. Yes four years, yet he has had a book published supposedly on fishing.

For me the book's biggest flaw is that once you have bought all your tackle, practised casting and you are now standing on the river bank or lakeside, you se a fish or perhaps one rises - what do you do next? Do you fish a nymph or a dry fly? Where do you cast? This basic information is absent. There is no description of the differences between dry fly fishing and nymph or wet fly fishing. Neither dry fly fishing per se nor nymphing appear in the otherwise comprehensive index. This must be a fundamental omission and reduces the value of the book. There is a short reference to dead drift nymphing but it is hidden away in a section on the March Brown. I do agree, though, that "presentation of the fly is the single most important skill in fly fishing.".

Does the newcomer to fly fishing really need to know all about fly tying? The 30 or more pages devoted to this subject should have been used for a chapter on actual fishing.

The book is divided up into four separate parts covering The Basics, Fish and Flies, Fly Fishing Essentials, and The Part of Tens. There are up to 17 chapters in each Part.

The black and white line drawings are clear and quite accurate (the hooks of some of the flies are like meat hooks though). One error is the drawing of a Sea Trout - no Sea Trout has a spiked dorsal fin like a Perch.

As well as being a very practical guide to how to get started fly fishing, I enjoyed the chapters on the ten best fishing books, ten good books for guidance and the best fishing magazines. Although these are all American, many are available overseas and via the Internet. In fact Fly Fishing as an interactive Sport is the last chapter in the book and it details some useful Websites. This is all useful information that helps fill-in the wonderful background to fly fishing and put it all in context. As do the anecdotes and stories about the author's personal fishing experiences.

In summary, not a bad book but the beginner will need to have somebody waiting on the waterside to show them what to do when confronted with a river with fish in it.

Fly Fishing For Dummies by Peter Kaminsky. Published by IDG Books Worldwide. US $19.99, £18.99 and Canada $26.99.