Fly Choice in Focus 3 AND Book Launch

Hi Craig – here is a complete breakdown and back-story that folks who get my email lessons have seen already. Very best wishes:

All of those lessons on Fly Choice and Presentation were based on a system of fishing that I’ve been working on for many, many years now (realistically beginning the mid 1990’s – having started fishing as a child in 1979).

Within the last five or six years I’ve also been fortunate to bounce those ideas off John Pearson as well as adding to and refining them by what we’ve found during our research trips to Japan (where we’ve been able to put some of the world’s best river fly anglers under the microscope).

Because the whole system is based on existing fly fishing methods – combined with stuff that ecologists know about – I’m not for one second suggesting that I invented the individual fishing tactics (or even the ecological science!).

Instead, what I aimed to do was to fit all of those complex tactics and scientific knowledge into a much more simple (and easy to use) system that lets you pick the ideal technique on your day and match it to the best fly pattern for the job.

Since tenkara is based on such simple flies and pared-down gear, it actually provides a brilliant way of demonstrating and understanding that whole system.

There is less “fluff” and gadgets to get in the way of the real knowledge and skills (the more you know, the less you need – and knowledge weighs nothing as they say). So, tenkara is a perfect model for testing and teaching the system.

Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that it only applies to tenkara!

This is getting right down to the nuts and bolts of ANY and ALL fly fishing on flowing water… and it has been tested and found to be extremely effective on trout rivers around the world (even under competition conditions).

It took me two years working in the evenings and at weekends to write, rewrite (and shorten/simplify/arrange) everything until it made sense. Using our shared collection of flies that experts had gifted to us – as well as examples we tied ourselves and that we even had specially commissioned – John produced a fantastic set of detailed photographs for the book.

Although writing the thing was only part of the challenge.

I went through the, not trivial, frustrations of learning a new graphics software package and spent many hours producing the diagrams that translated what I had in my head into hopefully helpful diagrams. John also put together a comprehensive index on fly tying materials for the dressings in the book for those folks who tie their own (or who want to pass on the dressings to the people who tie their flies for them!).

By self-funding through download media sales, I’ve been able to pay a designer to lay out the book content into an 8” x 10” softcover coffee-table book of 192 pages and 224 full colour, high resolution pictures!

In other words, not a cheap or easy book to print! The sensible thing would have been to drastically cut the number of images (or perhaps just keep it to a more modest e-book format). That’s certainly what happens to a lot of these fully-illustrated “how to” manuals that are self-published (without the resources of a big publishing house). Only, we didn’t want to compromise on the images…

For about a year, the future of this as a physical print book looked doubtful.

But, as I promised at the top of this message, I was in luck – and it’s all down to you as a member of this community of email subscribers.

Through your network, I was able to find a printer and designer to work with. This only happened due to Neil, who is reading this as a long-term subscriber right now (take a bow sir!).

You see, the printers (Anchorprint in Leicester in case you are interested!) have agreed to let us pay for just the design work up front; on the understanding that we can let them know how many books we need after the launch finishes on Friday (November 17th 2017!)…and then pay them for the batch of books that we order.

So what have we actually made?

The print book is called

“How to Fool Fish With Simple Flies: The Secret Science Behind Japanese Kebari & Euro-nymph Patterns”

It is broken down into Six Parts (and two Appendices):

Part I: What kebari are – and how they are designed to work
Part II: The Feeding Behaviour of Fish
Part III: A Summary of Kebari “Physical Fishability” Characteristics
Part IV: Outlines of Key Specific Fishing Methods
Part V: Bringing it All Together – Using Onstream Conditions to Choose Kebari and Tactics
Part VI: Fly Characteristics and Application

Appendix I: Guide to Tying Materials by John Pearson
Appendix II: Dressing Details for Flies Featured in the Book (or gifted during research)

What this means for you is that, in a single (very concise) volume, you’ve got a complete manual on how to turn very simple flies into extremely effective fish-catching patterns.

It lets you key in to simple aspects of the conditions that you find on your fishing days – and use those conditions as clues in an easy, structured way to make great choices of both fly pattern and presentation method.

Even putting aside my own selfish sense of pride and ego (!), I find that I can say without a trace of doubt that there really isn’t another book on fly fishing like this. There just isn’t…It shares valuable universal principles that cut through so much of the fog that can often limit your success and confidence.

Basically – this is a must-have book for the most important fly fisher in your life (especially if that special fly fisher is YOU Ha ha ha ha :):)!).

And, as we mentioned in our third and episode of “Fly Choice in Focus”, we are throwing in some special bonuses to mark both the launch (and also to say thanks for getting in ahead of the Nov 17th printer’s deadline).

If you’re interested in pre-ordering one or more copies from the very first print run ever, you’ll get:
Signed copies of the book (signed by both me and JP)
Individually-boxed Japanese kebari (fly) with each copy
$5 shipping anywhere in the world
After the close of the offer on 17th November we’ll send our order in to the printers and that will be the first ever print run done!

So do get in quickly if you want to take advantage of these bonuses to commemorate the (frankly extremely nerve-wracking) launch of “How to Fool Fish with Simple Flies”.

Click on your preferred currency PayPal button above to order before the deadline tonight, Friday Nov 17th 2017.

Paul