reviews

Best Flies for Idaho

Reviewed by Scott Richmond

Best Flies for Idaho, by Greg Thomas. Published by Greycliff Publishing Company. 160 pages in a 6x9 inch format, black-and-white plus four color pages. $19.95 retail. Available in some fly shops and online (google title and author).

f you've ever fly fished in Idaho, you know two things about the state: it's mostly rural and it has outstanding fly fishing. These two factors combine to make Idaho a fertile region for innovative fly tyers.

Idaho's rural nature means that most anglers can't walk across the street and pick up a few of their favorite flies. Instead, many of the state's fly fishers have had to tie their own patterns. Anyone who ties more than a dozen flies starts to experiment, and today's experimental fly can become tomorrow's killer pattern.

As Greg Thomas notes in the introduction to Best Flies for Idaho, "That self-reliant tradition began in the 1900s and continues today. For these reasons, Idaho has produced and still contains some of the most noted, innovative, and talented fly tyers in the nation."

And for these reasons, Best Flies for Idaho is a useful addition to any fly tyer's library, especially if the tyer plans to fish the intermountain West.

128 Flies, Plus Other Good Info

Thomas's book contains 128 flies that are particularly well-suited to Idaho. Some are universal patterns, but many were developed specifically for Idaho waters. For each pattern, there is a recipe, a photo, and notes about the fly--the best ways to fish it, how it was developed, where to use it, etc.

Most book buyers will grab this book, then race straight to their fly tying bench and whip up a few Mackay Specials or Moss Caddis Emergers. That's a good move, but don't forget to look at the rest of the book. In addition to the fly patterns, Thomas has included some interesting and insightful prose. This includes historical background on some of Idaho's famous tyers and flies (like why Ruel Stayner's fly is called a "Ducktail" when it has a duck feather for a wing, not a tail) and which flies are suited to different types of water or species of fish.

A Gripe

If I had to voice a negative about this book, it's the fly photos. There are four pages of color photos, but the flies are poorly lit and many have dark shadows on the body. Further, only 38 of the 128 flies are represented on the color plates, so you have to make do with tiny (one-inch high) black-and-whites for 90 of the patterns. This is the fault of the publisher, not the author. I wish Greycliff had spent just a bit more money and done high-quality color photos of all the flies. I certainly hope they correct this defect in future books in this series.

Bottom Line: Good collection of regional fly patterns, but the fly photos leave much to be desired.  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 06/01/2000.

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