Andrew
03-06-2008, 04:47 PM
I'm sort of in the midst of a couple of interesting books, so I thought I'd comment on them here in case anybody is interested in some reading material. Since I haven't finished them yet, think of this as a series of comments, not a thorough review.
A friend loaned me his copy of Rich Murphy's new book "Fly Fishing for Striped Bass". This is a monster sized book, completely packed with full page, full color photos of fish, flies, beaches, maps, etc. It's a "coffee table" book. My initial expectation was that the book would be heavy on flash, but light on content. This isn't the case. The book is loaded with interesting information about the biology of stripers, including but not limited to the results of research on feeding habits (they eat anything), growth rates, and migration patterns. There are several chapters on fishing different kinds of water (beaches, rocks, estuaries, etc). I haven't read these sections yet, but in my opinion these are the most important parts of a "how to" book, so I have to reserve final judgement until after I've read these parts. But just for the other stuff, I don't think one would find this book to be redundant with books by Mitchell and Tabory, for example.
The only section I have not gotten too excited about was the section on flies, which is titled something like "New flies for stripers". I am generally of the opinion that there is very little new under the sun, and for the most part, I still feel that way after reading the chapter on flies. They're nice, but I'm not sure they will appear new to the stripers. However, Murphy does describe an intriguing method for shaping large flies without adding excess bulk, and this method is novel as far as I can tell. I can't do it justice here, except to say in involves building a fly (say, with bucktail) over an internal "spreader". You'll have to read it. I havne't tried it yet, so I can't comment on how well it works or how easy it is to do.
If you're a striper book junkie, the book will probably satisfy you thoroughly.
The other book I'm working on is called, but is not about, "Fly Fishing for Sharks", by Richard Louv. Rather than a how to book, it's actually a book about travel, written around the theme of fishing. But more than that, it's really a book about people and fishing cultures around the country (the unofficial subtitle is "If you want to find America, go fishing."). Louv travels around meeting fishermen (and fisherwomen) of all types, from fly fishermen in Vermont to tournament largemouth bass anglers, to a guy who ice fishes for whitefish in Michigan's UP. The book is full of interesting characters (for example, a guy who filed his teeth so that he could more quickly bite through fishing line to change lures during bass tournaments!) but also a lot of interesting fishing related information (e.g. in the early days of fly fishing, reels were considered tools of low class poachers). So far, this has been a very fun book, and a good way to spend a rainy afternoon.
Andrew
A friend loaned me his copy of Rich Murphy's new book "Fly Fishing for Striped Bass". This is a monster sized book, completely packed with full page, full color photos of fish, flies, beaches, maps, etc. It's a "coffee table" book. My initial expectation was that the book would be heavy on flash, but light on content. This isn't the case. The book is loaded with interesting information about the biology of stripers, including but not limited to the results of research on feeding habits (they eat anything), growth rates, and migration patterns. There are several chapters on fishing different kinds of water (beaches, rocks, estuaries, etc). I haven't read these sections yet, but in my opinion these are the most important parts of a "how to" book, so I have to reserve final judgement until after I've read these parts. But just for the other stuff, I don't think one would find this book to be redundant with books by Mitchell and Tabory, for example.
The only section I have not gotten too excited about was the section on flies, which is titled something like "New flies for stripers". I am generally of the opinion that there is very little new under the sun, and for the most part, I still feel that way after reading the chapter on flies. They're nice, but I'm not sure they will appear new to the stripers. However, Murphy does describe an intriguing method for shaping large flies without adding excess bulk, and this method is novel as far as I can tell. I can't do it justice here, except to say in involves building a fly (say, with bucktail) over an internal "spreader". You'll have to read it. I havne't tried it yet, so I can't comment on how well it works or how easy it is to do.
If you're a striper book junkie, the book will probably satisfy you thoroughly.
The other book I'm working on is called, but is not about, "Fly Fishing for Sharks", by Richard Louv. Rather than a how to book, it's actually a book about travel, written around the theme of fishing. But more than that, it's really a book about people and fishing cultures around the country (the unofficial subtitle is "If you want to find America, go fishing."). Louv travels around meeting fishermen (and fisherwomen) of all types, from fly fishermen in Vermont to tournament largemouth bass anglers, to a guy who ice fishes for whitefish in Michigan's UP. The book is full of interesting characters (for example, a guy who filed his teeth so that he could more quickly bite through fishing line to change lures during bass tournaments!) but also a lot of interesting fishing related information (e.g. in the early days of fly fishing, reels were considered tools of low class poachers). So far, this has been a very fun book, and a good way to spend a rainy afternoon.
Andrew