I'd like to learn more about fly patterns - not with a view to tying, but I forget the names of a lot of the flies I buy. Plus, I'm sometimes not entirely sure of the type of fly, or stage, a pattern is supposed to represent.

Can anybody recommend a good field guide (or guides) to wet and dry trout flies? (Field guide size would be handy, but not essential.)

I'm mainly fishing rivers in North Wales and the borders. I don't really want one of those that includes salmon flies (although grayling would be good) and it would be good if it had some of the more recent examples, rather than just the 'classics'.

Thanks.

A waterside guide By John Goddard Excellent...

So is the little book of the same name by John Goddard and it is pocket sized, also Match the Hatch by Pat O'Reilly is good but a bit larger than pocket sized.

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“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary

A Guide to River Trout Flies by John Roberts is a good tome of info but not small enough to be a field guide.

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http://www.fishleven.co.uk/
http://www.edenangling.co.uk/