Just to start things off, I've been thinking about my favourite books "related" to fishing. I think there are different categories involved here and choice will always be a personal thing. So here goes, my favourites are:-
"How to" books:- Falkus for Salmon Fishing and Sea Trout Fishing. Goddard and Clarke for The Trout and the Fly (river) and Dennis Moss for Trout from a Boat (lough). Ted Leeson and Jim Schollmeyer for The Fly Tiers Benchside reference (technique) and E.J. Malones Irish Trout and Salmon Flies (patterns).
"Autobiographical":- Negley Farson for Going Fishing.
"Books with fish in them", Not strictly fishing books but containg a fair bit about fishing:- Norman Maclean for a River runs Through it, anything by John Gierach but particularly Trout Bum and my personal favourite, the beautifully evocative The Earth is Enough by Harry Middleton.

What are your personal favourites?

Simon.

An excellent start Simon and a very worthwhile addition to the forum.

Fly fishing has a rich and diverse history of 'writing', a history that should be celebrated in the hope that it will draw new anglers to it from the rather meagre diet of 'how to' articles that populate many of our monthly magazine publications.

Looking back, in the modern era, Skues, Harry Plunkett-Green and Sawyer cover the 'mainstream' but there are very many other, very valuable anglers and authors that give us a huge insight into the development of our sport - particularly on the stone / spate streams away from the chalk focussed writing of Southern England.

There are any number of books that track the development of fly fishing on streams and if anyone is interested I'd gleefully recommend the bibliography in Christopher Knowles', "Orange Otter",( The life and times of the Reverend Edward Powell) - in particular;
C V Hancock, "A Rod in Hand",
T A Powell ( the Rev Powell's brother), "Here and there a lusty trout"
W M Gallichan - anything by him!
Michael Leighton - "Trout Flies of Shropshire & the Welsh Borderlands."
James Evans - " Small River Fly Fishing for Trout and Grayling"

Two other books -
Ieuan D Owen - "Trout Fisherman's Saga" - A celebration of Dai Lewis,
W H Canaway - " A Snowdon Stream, (the Gwyrfai) and How To Fish It".

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[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

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Old Man and the Sea - brilliant book and a joy and sadness to read.


Ben

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I know this is a fly fishing forum, but I promised my self I would get one of chris yates books. He's a very talented writer and fisherman, I think he captures what the sport is all about.

I am a huge fan of A Passion For Angling and would love to read a Chris Yates title. Can anyone reccommend a goody?

Also has anyone ever seen a copy of Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle ? Since this is the first ever book on angling (1496) I'd love to see it but clearly can't afford one of the proper jobs. Has this been reprinted on the cheap?

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FISHING TACKLE IS FOR CATCHING ANGLERS, NOT FISH!!

Thanks Very much Lighthouse, I'll get onto my bookshop, plenty to check out there!

I wrote to Richard Hewitt last week to try and convince him to he create this section of the forum for this very reason, a good source of reliable recommendations. Good on him for doing it so soon! In such a swamp of myriad books to choose from on the subject, I just don't know where to start.

P.S
Just read 'On Fishing' by Brian Clarke - Really worth a go! Going to put a new post up about it now.

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FISHING TACKLE IS FOR CATCHING ANGLERS, NOT FISH!!

Accidentalangler: if you're after a Yates try Casting at the Sun. Probably his best work, apart from 2 recent books: How to Fish and Out of the Blue only one of which I've read (Out of the Blue). It was fantastic. I could smell the salt air and hear the waves lapping. How to Fish is next on my list.

My own favourites (by modern writers):

Somewhere Else, Accidental Angler... (I will read whatever he publishes next!) (CHR)
Casting At the Sun, Out of the Blue etc (Yates)
Sex Death and Fly Fishing, Troutbum etc (Geirach)

With these 3 authors you can't go wrong. Lot of good reading there for starters. A lot of laughs along the way as well.

Norman Maclean has written some fantastic stuff. The Longest Silence: A Life in Fishing is a great read, and has a combination of fresh and saltwater fishing. Brilliant writing with effortless simplicity - saying it all in just a few words. It's one step from poetry reading some of these guys stuff. I do like that in my reading. Reminds me of Ray Bradbury in some ways.

An interesting novel with a whole lot of fishing, philosophy etc: The River Why? by David James Duncan.

When I have a minute I might list a few other authors and books that I think are essential reads. That's just for starters.

Hello,

I love the fishing books,especially from your country(I live in Hungary).
My favourite books in the "How to" category are Ronalds' The Fly-Fisher 's Entomology .It's a basic book of fly fishing/tying,I think.
Because I'm a fanatic wet fly fisherman,I like Ray Bergman's Trout book because of the lot of married winged wet fly.
I like every book of Hardy Brothers and I've some Anglers' Guide,too.
Finally I have bought a copy of Chris Yates' A Passion for Angling.The film was marvelous and the book,too.
The Hungarian fishing literature is poor but some books unreachable.I've tried to collect them but It was a difficult task but succeed.

Cheers,

Levente

Casting At the Sun, Out of the Blue etc (Yates) It is a magical book.

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[COLOR="Blue"]"A fish seen is a fish nearly caught"[/COLOR]

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