This book made me angry! It could have been very good. Some of the illustrations are fantastic. And I intend to ties some of the patterns included in it. Any beginner who buys it will be able to learn to tie flies from it. But. . . .

It seemed to me that much of the early part of the book was not written in a way that a real beginner would understand. I read the book with the benefit of three, 12-week sessions of fly tying with a local fly tying group behind me.

I think my biggest complaint is encouraging beginners to put hooks in the vice (spelt with an s in the book) with the point exposed ie held by the bend of the hook. I know that there is an argument that if you hold a hook by the point/barb area you will weaken it and that this is the way American tiers hold their hooks, but the beginner will very quickly break the tying thread by catching it on the point of the hook, or, even worse, slice open a finger. If the authors want people to start this way, they really should have included a warning of the potential dangers.

Page 16, General principles, "There is a natural temptation to 'make sure' by adding a few more turns than necessary. There is also a tendency to use tying thread which is thicker than that which is recommended." This is pure humbug. I know that it is right to try to start everybody off in the right direction but one of the problems starting tying flies is that everything is so small and so fine that even the thickest thread snaps as soon as you look at it. It is only after weeks of tying that you will have the confidence to start using fewer turns of thread to hold hackles etc and that you will know just how hard you can pull 8/0 thread before it breaks.

There is a good Freudian slip on page 13. Here the authors write about the tyro fly tier's urge to tie a fly and to fish with it. They then say that well tied flies fish better and how this point should give you the "impetuous" to learn the basic steps. Impetus would have been better!

Dotted about amongst the pages on the dressings and tying instructions for the 12 flies in the book are sections entitled Tricks of the Trade. I would rather have seen these adjacent to the fly dressing to which they refer. In the section on the necessary tools and materials there is no mention of varnish. Then in the list of materials needed to tie the flies in the book, varnish gets a brief mention. Then Tricks of the Trade number seven is a full page on varnish. There is another one, Getting in a Twist - The Dubbing Loop, which describes clearly and concisely how to make a dubbing loop using a dubbing twirler, yet the basic information keeps being repeated, for example on page 70, but this time there is no illustration of the dubbing loop. Also whilst on the subject of dubbing, there is no mention of waxing the thread to help hold the dubbing material, whether forming a dubbing rope or loop. And there are other repetitions too which suggests a lack of editing.

On tying the Grey Wulff, we have the very helpful instruction "If the hair is the correct length..." I know there is an illustration but we are not told what is the correct length. A description or measurement would be helpful here. Getting the proportions right is something that beginners all find difficult and is, quite rightly, given a Tricks of the Trade page but it does not appear until page 44.

I will recommend the book to beginners with the proviso that it does have some shortcomings, many of which I have pointed out in this review. Each fly is well described and there are useful fishing hints. Fly tying is great fun and most rewarding. So anything that helps people get started is to be welcomed and this book is certainly clearer than many beginners' books on the subject. Terry Lawton.

Beginner's Guide To Fly Tying
Step-by-step instructions for twelve popular and versatile fly patterns
by Chris Mann and Terry Griffiths.

Published by Merlin Unwin Books at £7.99. Hardback 96 pages.

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