The Dry Fly: New Angles
The author ofCaddisfliesandTrout Flies: Proven Patternspresents his  vast knowledge about catching trout on dry flies inThe Dry Fly: New Angles, an advanced  resource for the serious fly-fisher. Combining years of fishing and tying experience with keen observation  and lucid prose, LaFontaine organizes his information into several theories about trout behavioral patterns  and fishing strategy. He starts with three basic schools of dry fly-fishing: empiricism, generalism, and  naturalism. The empiricist relies on remembering which flies worked on certain rivers, regardless of the  hatch; the generalist relies on presentation of a few favorite flies, also regardless of the hatch; and the  naturalist tries above all to match the hatch with exact imitations. LaFontaine shows why each of these  schools is flawed. Basing his ideas on close laboratory study and underwater diving, he argues that a  knowledge of primary and secondary strike-triggering characteristics is paramount to catching fish--a  school of thought that, in certain conditions, will exaggerate an imitative trait on a fly to attractor-like  effect. Beneath all this is the science of when to use imitators and when to use attractors, when to float a fly  high on the surface and when to float it low, like an emerger.If you're tired of reaching for the same flies time after time, despite obviously different river conditions or  feeding behavior, readThe Dry Fly.