Essential Fly Patterns for Lakes and Streams

Publisher: Caitlin Press Inc.

In Essential Fly Patterns for Lakes and Streams, Brian Smith cuts to the chase, offering the reader and fly tier more than 80 flies with recipes and instructions for each. In his third book, Smith shares the results of his more than 50 years of experimentation and research developing and refining fly patterns that are proven fish-catchers. Some of the patterns are world standards, but many have been tweaked and altered by Smith through his observations and studies of insects, including where they live in lakes and streams and what triggers are responsible to entice fish to “eat the fly.” The book provides details for tying the most important insect imitations in their various stages of lifeforms and is full of Smith’s important tips about their pattern developments. The fly-tying tips in Essential Fly Patterns for Lakes and Streams have been perfected over Smith’s countless hours of fun at the vise and are uniquely designed to simplify the process of tying replica fly patterns that are consistent in appearance, size, shape and attitude.

Brian Smith is a freelance outdoor writer who has been an accomplished fly tier, rod builder and fly-fishing enthusiast for over fifty years. His specialty is fly-fishing for trout in BC’s lakes and streams and the foothills’ rivers of Southern Alberta, and chasing steelhead and salmon in the watercourses of northwest BC. Smith’s work has appeared in Outdoor Edge magazine, Fly Fishing & Tying Journal, the Canadian Fly Fisher magazine and Northwood Magazine. He was featured in Contemporary Fly Patterns of British Columbia, donated fly patterns to A Compendium of Canadian Fly Patterns and was a sponsor and contributor to the publication of a collection of Jack Shaw’s diaries, The Pleasure of His Company. He was recognized as Contributor of the Year in 1997 for his donations of fly-fishing articles to BC Wildlife Federation’s Outdoor Edge magazine, and in 2008 was awarded the Jack Shaw Fly Tying Award by the BC Federation of Fly Fishers. Smith is the current president of Polar Coachman Fly Fishing Club in Prince George and a long-time member of the BC Wildlife Federation, BC Federation of Fly Fishers and Steelhead Society of BC. He has four fly-fishing children and lives with his wife, Lois, in Prince George, BC. He has previously published Fly Fishing BC’s Interior (Caitlin Press, 2009) and Seasons of a Fly Fisher (Caitlin Press, 2013). Essential Fly Patterns for Lakes and Streams is his third book.