An Advanced Course in Fly Fishing

The mission of The Little Red Book of Fly Fishing was to demystify and un-complicate the tricks and tips that make a great trout fisher. There are no complicated physics lessons in that book. Rather, The Little Red Book of Fly Fishing offered a simple, digestible primer on the basic elements of fly fishing: the cast, presentation, reading water, and selecting flies.

In this, The Little Black Book of Fly Fishing, authors Kirk Deeter and Chris Hunt take you to the next level, building upon what Deeter and Charlie Meyers did in The Little Red Book. The Little Black Book will helps fly fishers build upon what they learned in the Little Red Book. Read this valuable, thought-provoking guidebook, and you'll be at the point where you'll be catching fish when no one else is, and you'll know exactly why you are. Advanced casting, presentation, reading the water, fly selection, and much more, including proper gear selection, are all covered. The table of contents, below, explains it all.

The Little Black Book of Fly Fishing

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

Part 1: CASTING

1. A double-haul is really important, and not just in the salt
2. Teaching someone new? Start with Tenkara
3. Everybody needs a casting lesson. Everybody.
4. Casting longer leaders
5. 'Casting' nymphs under indicators
6. Get a practice rod
7. How to cast a 15-foot leader (and why you should)
8. Casting at taillights
9. The cast killer
10. Your casting stroke follow joints by size
11. Challenge your cast
12. Great casts are the ones that get bit
13. Score your casts like golf strokes; fewer is better
14. The sand-save cast
15. A reach cast is worth a thousand mends
16. Five feet short on purpose (the linear false cast)
17. Be Lefty in the salt, and Rajeff in the fresh
18. Give yourself a "D"
19. Beating wind
20. Don't out-kick your coverage

1. Fast strip for saltwater predators
2. A swirl, not a rise
3. Casting streamers upstream
4. Carp: Not just for city kids
5. Step out of your comfort zone
6. What are the birds after?
7. The potato chip fakeout
8. Why natives matter
9. But I still love brown trout best
10. Micro-drag: where you stand matters
11. You'll never beat a fish into submission
12. Take it to the lake
13. Float tubes and garbage cans
14. Food never attacks fish
15. A case for the dry-fly snob
16. Go Deep in the name of fish research
17. Roll fish for fun
18. They're in skinny water for a reason
19. The cafeteria line
20. The escape hatch

Part 3: READING WATER (AND FISH)

1. The stripset
2. Covering water
3. Skate and twitch big flies in low light
4. Rod tip down for streamers
5. Weight an unweighted fly with fly-tying beads instead of split-shot
6. Urban angling
7. Get in shape. Stay in shape.
8. Dry your fly first, apply floatant second
9. Most fish (and some bugs) face upstream--present accordingly
10. Head up, game over
11. Step when you streamer
12. Babysit your flies
13. ID the "player" and get after it
14. Gin clear water
15. Flat calm water
16. Developing "TSP" (trout sensory perception)
17. A fish doesn't see like humans do
18. Walk on
19. The 10 second rule
20. Like a dog on a leash
21. Tip up or tip down?
22. The keys to spotting fish
23. The full-court press usually fails
24. Use the whole spice cabinet
25. River personalities and handshakes
26. What the cloud layers tell you
27. Knowing what they are not doing is equally important as knowing what they are
28. Upwelling v. the straight seam
29. The speed of the strike is proportionate to the depth of the water (in rivers)
30. See this, do that

1. UV resin in home-tied flies
2. Nymphs on the swing
3. Multi-purpose flies
4. Sparse for saltwater
5. UV parachute posts
6. Tip the fly for tying parachute posts
7. Caddis: the most dishonest fly ever
8. Wire or tinsel for dry flies
9. The "pellet fly" you can feel good about
10. Practice, practice, practice
11. Peacock herl ... and why it works
12. The mystery of the Purple Prince Nymph
13. Profile is everything
14. The Adams family
15. Lethal mice
16. The Mole Fly miracle
17. Bob Behnke on colors
18. Terrestrials are opportunity bugs
19. The end of the duck
20. Colors change with depth
21. Un-matching the hatch
22. The monkey poo fly

Part 5: MISC. (Everything from gear, to fighting fish and angler ethics)

1. Fly reels for trout are just line holders
2. Fly reels matter for saltwater fish
3. Faster rods aren't always better
4. You get what you pay for
5. Pride cometh before the fall
6. Sheet-metal screws
7. Wire for predators
8. Quick-dry attire for the flats
9. ABC. Anything But Cotton
10. Snip your tippet at an angle
11. Rod weight depends on fly types
12. The best loop knot... perfection
13. 7X tippet is BS
14. Colors and camo above the surface
15. Guitars and fly rods
16. Bucket list places
17. Tiger snakes and long hemostats
18. It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n roll
19. Score fishing like cricket
20. It's okay to fail
21. I cheer for the fish

About the Author: Kirk Deeter is the vice president and editor-in-chief of Trout Media, the communications wing of Trout Unlimited. He is also the editor of Angling Trade. His work has appeared in numerous media, including Wired, USA Today, Garden & Gun, Field & Stream, and elsewhere. Known for his "out there" and sometimes offbeat story angles, his work has taken him fishing on five continents, from the tip of Tierra del Fuego in Argentina to north of the Arctic Circle in Russia, from the Tasmanian highlands to the Amazon jungle. He lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
Chris Hunt is the national digital director for Trout Media. He is responsible for in-house content crafted for TU's blog, and for content sent out over social media to TU's members, supporters and followers. Chris is a former newspaper editor and reporter who came to TU in 2005, where he worked for the organization's Sportsmen's Conservation Project. He served several years as the organization's national communications director and assumed his present duties in late 2016. Chris is an award-winning journalist, having received recognition from the Associated Press, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Association, the Idaho Press Club and the Outdoor Writers Association of America. He's also written four books, the latest of which--a fly fishing history and guide to Yellowstone National Park--was published in June 2109. He lives and works in Idaho Falls, Idaho.