reviews

A Concise History of Fly Fishing

Reviewed by Scott Richmond

A Concise History of Fly Fishing, by Glenn Law. Published by The Lyons Press (an imprint of The Globe Pequot Pres). 175 pages in a 5 by 7.5 inch format. Black-and-white. $17.95 retail. Available at some fly shops and online (google the title).

ho was Juliana Berners? Was Isaac Walton a good fly angler? And what were he and Charles Cotton up to on the River Dove? Who were Halford and Skues, and why did they dislike each other so much? How do you pronounce "Skues," anyway? So what do the Catskills have to do with American fly fishing?

If you want the short answers to question such as these, this is the book to read. Titled A Concise History of Fly Fishing, it lives up to its name and takes the reader on a 150-page tour of our sport from its beginnings to the present day.

It's a quick read, generally interesting and well-written. The author, Glenn Law, has his high points and insights. The Walton/Cotton chapter and the discussion of Halford and Skues are particularly good, in my opinion. He understands that the development of the sport is closely tied to the technology of its tackle. He also examines such issues as how (some) fly fishers became spouters of Latin, the rise of pomposity, and what makes American fly fishing distinct.

The book is not without flaws, however. I choked when I read his statement that rainbow trout "were originally native only to California." This will come as a shock to many biologists, let alone anglers in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, B.C., and Alaska. Initially, I passed this misstatement off as an error by the editor, not the author, because it's true that most hatchery rainbow trout trace their lineage to California's McCloud River. Further on, however, the author states that salmon and steelhead are functionally extinct in the West. Clearly the book has some errors, and I hope the history is more accurate than some of the Western biology.

All histories have a boundary problem: how old does an event have to be before it's "history" and not "contemporary issues." I would have cut this off a bit sooner than Glenn Law did; the book gets a little scattered and unfocused when the 1980s are considered as history.

Of course, if I don't like it I can write my own history book, and that's not bloody likely. The extensive bibliography at the end would be a good starting point, though.

Overall, this is a worthwhile book for anyone who wishes to gain some perspective on where fly fishing has been and how it got where it is.

Bottom Line: A good place to learn about the elders of the tribe. Reviewer Rating: 3

Scott Richmond is Westfly's creator and Executive Director. He is the author of eight books on Oregon fly fishing, including Fishing Oregon's Deschutes River (second edition).

Uploaded 01/19/2004.

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