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Improve Your Fly Fishing by John Bailey

Reviewed by Terry Lawton

Improve Your Fly Fishing is one of a series of fishing guides written by John Bailey. One of the most noticeable features of this book is the (generally) excellent photography, much of it from underwater. There are some stunning shots although one or two are not that easy to understand. It’s also very nice to see a fishing book that takes a new approach to the subject: learning about fish and their habitats. But I am not sure just how much the book will actually improve your fly fishing. John Bailey does have some slightly strange ideas.

One slight problem with this book is that it has been written and produced to a set formula. There must be a proper word for it but I don’t know what it is. Anyway, the whole book is a series of spreads and the designer and editor have decided how much of each page will be illustrations and how much text. Because the text has been written to fit, it means that some sections do not get as full a treatment as they deserve.

The book starts by looking at fishing in crystal clear waters in Greenland, New Zealand, the USA and Scandinavia before moving on to The Chalk Stream in Summer. In On The Surface there re some very good shots of trout taking flies and fish’s eye view of flies on the surface.

When he is writing about nymph fishing and fishing with your nymph on the bottom, I assume that he is advocating this when fishing stillwaters, but I am not entirely certain as most of the book is about rivers. Fishermen involved in river management will be interested in the pages and photographs on Trout Conservation.

Fortunately for all anglers, "Fish are not professors of entomology but creatures earning their living." This is how we are able to outwit them with our artificial flies, as John Bailey discusses in the section on Problem Solving. The book then moves on to fishing for grayling, salmon and even in the sea. before ending with a Mongolian Odyssey which includes fishing for 70lb plus taimen with artificial mice as well as beautiful grayling. The book ends with information and advice on catching many other fish on the fly, some of which people fish for already and others that we may not have considered trying to catch.

This is a nice book to have, read and look at. At only 96 pages it is not a long or heavy read. It certainly will help fishermen to understand what the trout can see and what happens underwater, but how much it will actually help improve your fly fishing is a slightly moot point, I feel.

John Bailey’s Fishing Guides, Improve Your Fly Fishing, Learn The Underwater Secrets of Fish And Their Habitats. Published by New Holland at £12.99. Hardback, 96 pages.



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