My first book?

[rawfish]

I love fly fishing books, and now that I am beginning to teach myself fly tying I am ready for some tying books as well. I am using Al Campbell's lessons online for now but would love an excellent BEGINNER's book as well.
Any recommendations?
Thanks as always

[dixieangler]

Eric Leiser's Complete Book of Fly Tying. It covers traditional materials and traditional flies mostly.

http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/catalo ... 039440047X

For synthetic materials, I like Phil Camera's Fly Tying with Synthetics: Patterns and Techniques. This book however uses a lot of plates for patterns so it assumes that the tyer already has a good working knowledge of traditional materials and flies (not a beginner book).

[Gardenfish]

Fly Tying by Helen Shaw. If I were to give a gift package to a new flyfisher this book would be in it.
Paul

[white43]

Once you get going, and AC's tutorals are as good as it gets and the price can't be beat, then check out Ron Eagle Elk's annual Beginner's Swap on the Swap Board. I think I've learned more in swaps than anything else. Fly Tyers magazine is good as well. JGW

[JeffHamm]

Hi,

I'm not sure if you would find this in the book shops in the US, but I would think you could find a copy online:

New Zealand Fly Tying: The ten-thumbed beginners guide by Hugh McDowell is a really good starting book, and generally it teaches a few "styles" of patterns. So, once you can tie one, you can tie a range of flies by just changing the colours and materials. He encourages this kind of experimentation, which can be very rewarding. Most of this book is dedicated to the larger NZ lures, which are often tied on quite large hooks. However, they can all be sized down and still work well. There's a few good stories included as well, which make for good reading and such. Anyway, it would cover flies you will be unlikely to find in other books.

- Jeff

[Darryl]

I'd strongly recommend the "Orvis Fly Tying Guide" (not to be confused with a much smaller book the "Orvis Fly Tying Manual"). It covers the basic trout flies; dry, wet, nymph, streamer, terrestial and even a few salt water patterns too. The back section of the book contains patterns for every fly in the Orvis catalog. It's a wonderful book for a beginer. Coupled with Al Campbell's tutorials on this site, which are some of the finest fly tying instruction period, they should get you a long way.

After that, the next book to buy would be the "Fly Tyer's Benchside Reference". Nothing compares to that one. But make sure you enjoy tying before purchasing this one - although it's without question the definative book on fly tying, it's also one of the most expensive, retailing for $100, although you can find it for significantly less on sites like Overstock.com, etc.

Happy tying!

-Darryl

[Greg H]

Get [url=http://www.amazon.com/Tying-Better-Flies-Techniques-Effective/dp/0881505838/sr=1-1/qid=1157428815/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-0116745-0331010?ie=UTF8&s=books:23cba]This one[/url:23cba], Art Sheck's 'Tying Better Flies'. The language is clear and comfortable, the patterns and techniques are easy and there is a system of thinking about the various fly styles that is transferable to future patterns. I wish it had been out 20 years ago when I started.

[Redtail]

I'm just a beginer my self. A local Orvis shop suggested a great book , when I went to get some supplies to get started this year. The book is THE BENCHSIDE INTRODUCTION TO FLY TYING by Ted Leeson & Jim Schollmeyer. This book has alot of patterns and step by step instruction. It also is cool because it is split in two sections so you can look at the step by step and if you have a question about how to do something it gives you a page number that has the info on it. So if I'm tying a fly and I get to the part where I need to Palmer Hackle and I forgot or don't know how, I just flip the bottom half of the book to 156B or whatever and it gives me a step by step ref. It's nice because you can see both how to and still view where your at in tying the fly not fliping back and forth. The book cost $45.