America's Favorite Flies: 9 x 12 inches, 656 pages, full-color, case bound with cloth, smyth sewn. America's Favorite Flies, a book by Rob Carter and John Bryan, is a landmark gathering of 224 persons from across North America, each of whom has provided a favorite fly along with comments and materials. Among the book's contents are stunning photographs of the flies and writings by the participants. The list of participants is compelling: President Jimmy Carter, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, fly-fishing matriarch Joan Wulff, salt fly legend Lefty Kreh, 1% for the Planet co-founder Craig Mathews, Riverkeeper founder Robert Boyle, rock musician Huey Lewis, artist James Prosek, author Tom McGuane, and on and on. America's Favorite Flies is dedicated to Norman Maclean, author of A River Runs through It, which spawned the movie that has had arguably more impact on fly-fishing than anything in its history. Norman Maclean's children, Jean Snyder Maclean and John N. Maclean, have given their appreciation and enthusiastic confirmation for this dedication. The book also includes approximately 100 artworks by some of North America's most beloved outdoor artists. 14 influential people in the world of fly fishing have contributed special essays. All of the profits from America's Favorite Flies are donated to two organizations whose work benefits ever healthier fisheries and waters. The James River Association is guardian of the 348-mile James River that begins with mountain trout waters and concludes amid bluefish and flounder waters where the Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean. The Native Fish Society plays a vital role in the conservation and recovery of wild, native fish in the Pacific Northwest, and is an active advocate both regionally and nationally.

Clear illustrations and photos (83) show you how to tie all 290 patterns in the book which are shown in full color and large size with tying instructions adjacent to each. Best-producing North American flies, including most popular dry, nymph, wet, streamer and bucktail, steelhead, Atlantic salmon, Pacific salmon, cut-throat, Alaskan, saltwater, bass, and panfish patterns. Color plates of tying materials, including fur, hackle, thread, etc. Fly pattern index. Fishing tips for most patterns. Printed on heavy, gloss paper stock. Bound for easy opening.

John McPhee's twenty-sixth book is a braid of personal history, natural history, and American history, in descending order of volume. Each spring, American shad-Alosa sapidissima-leave the ocean in hundreds of thousands and run heroic distances upriver to spawn. McPhee--a shad fisherman himself--recounts the shad's cameo role in the lives of George Washington and Henry David Thoreau. He fishes with and visits the laboratories of famous ichthyologists; he takes instruction in the making of shad darts from a master of the art; and he cooks shad in a variety of ways, delectably explained at the end of the book. Mostly, though, he goes fishing for shad in various North American rivers, and he "fishes the same way he writes books, avidly and intensely. He wants to know everything about the fish he's after--its history, its habits, its place in the cosmos" (Bill Pride, The Denver Post). His adventures in pursuit of shad occasion the kind of writing--expert and ardent--at which he has no equal.

A book “that has very little to do with trout fishing and a lot to do with the lamenting of a passing pastoral America . . . an instant cult classic” (Financial Times). Richard Brautigan was a literary idol of the 1960s and ’70s who came of age during the heyday of Haight-Ashbury and whose comic genius and iconoclastic vision of American life caught the imaginations of young people everywhere. Called “the last of the Beats,” his early books became required reading for the hip generation, and on its publication Trout Fishing in America became an international bestseller. An indescribable romp, the novel is best summed up in one word: mayonnaise. This new edition features an introduction by poet Billy Collins, who first encountered Brautigan’s work as a student in California. From the introduction: “‘Trout Fishing in America’ is a catchphrase that morphs throughout the book into a variety of conceptual and dramatic shapes. At one point it has a physical body that bears such a resemblance to that of Lord Byron that it is brought by ship from Missolonghi to England, in 1824, where it is autopsied. ‘Trout Fishing in America’ is also a slogan that sixth-graders enjoy writing on the backs of first-graders. . . . In one notable exhibition of the title’s variability, ‘Trout Fishing in America’ turns into a gourmet with a taste for walnut catsup and has Maria Callas for a girlfriend. Through such ironic play, Brautigan destabilizes any conventional idea of a book as he begins to create a world where things seem unwilling to stay in their customary places.”

This marvelous collection features stories from some of America’s finest and most respected writers about one of the world’s most solitary and satisfying sports: fly fishing. For the first time, the stories of thirty-one acclaimed writers including Kim Barnes, Walter Bennett, Russell Chatham, Guy de la Valdène, Robert DeMott, Chris Dombrowski, Ron Ellis, Jim Fergus, Kate Fox, Charles Gaines, Bruce Guernsey, Jim Harrison, Pam Houston, Michael Keaton, Greg Keeler, Sydney Lea, Ted Leeson, Nick Lyons, Craig Mathews, Thomas McGuane, Joseph Monninger, Howard Frank Mosher, Jake Mosher, Craig Nova, Margot Page, Datus Proper, Le Anne Schreiber, Paul Schullery, W. D. Wetherell, and Robert Wrigley come together in one collection. Fly fishers and non-fly fishers alike will recognize in these poignant tales the universal aspects of the appreciation of nature, the necessity of conservation, and the joy and knowledge that come from time spent on fresh and salt water. This is a delightful, handsome volume that captures the allure and spirit of fly fishing and those that love it.

The Orvis Guide to the Essential American Flies is the definitive full-color how-to guide for tying the most successful and productive freshwater and saltwater flies.