A Few Thoughts on Charles Meck's Book "The Hatches Made Simple"

I have enjoyed the first two books by Charles Meck I read. The first was "Meeting and Fishing the Hatches'. That book was a masterpiece for anyone wanting to learn about aquatic insects and their hatching behavior, time, etc. Filled with hatch charts and great info. The other was a book on his favorite patterns.

Now, I have just read "The Hatches Made Simple".

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This book, too, is filled with great information on insects, hatches, and patterns.

What is different about this book is his observation relating to the COLOR of hatching insects. He has charts and explanations for each season of the year on the time of emergence and the basic colors of the hatching insects. As an example, here is a little color chart for Early Summer:


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Meck does discuss quite a bit about fly patterns and gives a lot of great suggested patterns. But, the thrust is to come up with a simplified way to cover most hatches with the fewest number of flies. He points out that a book written in the mid-50's listed over 6,000 patterns and since then, with all the new synthetics, there must be double that number!

His point is to select a good standard pattern (or a handful) and then tie them in multiple sizes and in the colors to be expected - as shown in his several insect hatching color charts.

The book is much more than the above, but it sure gets one thinking.....................

I have the book, too, and I really enjoy reading it and I refer to it often. He does simplify hatches.