Good Flies
by John Gierach

My Comments
I have read this book completely from cover to cover. Though I find John's stories a little long winded and empty occasionally, I did find the flies, their tying directions, uses, etc. very valuable lessons. I have tied a number flies from this book and some of trick/tips in this book have been right on point, improving my tying skills. The flies and their recipes are collection from many different tyers (lots of A.K. Best's flies) with John's personal adaptations added usually to simplify the tie or to use what seems to be his two favorite substances –– 200R hooks and hare's ear. Nonetheless, I found the book an excellent read and a great addition to my tying library. A definite buy recommendation.

Book Description
Here is a popular writer using his fishing experience and talent for words and humor to create a wonderful book of observations on flies and fly tying.

This intimate glimpse behind John Gierach’s vise focuses on the trout flies he has found most successful and how he ties them. There are chapters on how he developed as a fly tyer--from being a hopeless tinkerer who tried every pattern there was to settling on a large handful of favorite patterns that now catch most of his trout. Gierach explores the tools he uses for his tying and advocates those that are simple and basic (and few), and he also makes his case for the use of natural materials. Then there are cogent chapters on the flies themselves – small, medium, and large mayflies (which is how he arranges them in his fly boxes), spinners, midges, caddis, hoppers, nymphs, and streamers.

Throughout, the book is punctuated with fishing stories and observations on days astream as well as days at his vise, all in Gierach’s inimitable style . . . rambling a little, following this thread and that, always full of wit and deft experience and that special down-home style that has made him America’s favorite fly-fishing author. No John Gierach fan will want to miss this delightful little book on the heart of all fly fishing: the fly.

Professional Reviews

Amazon.com
It's easy to forget that in between his collections of essays, John Gierach has published a number of slender volumes, each devoted to a single aspect of fly-fishing and usually of a more technical nature. Flyfishing the High Country and Fishing Bamboo come to mind. Some readers may grouse that these tracts are more about one angler's proclivities and lack the lode of quotable lines of the essay collections--and they'd be right--but like a comfortable old pair of waders, they get the job done in a familiar sort of way, which is to say they mark the developments of an ever-changing pursuit at a particular time, with a nod to the author's own role therein. If it sometimes seems like Gierach can write them in his sleep, so be it; that's what happens when the honing of style meets extensive first-hand experience. Good Flies finds Gierach behind the fly-tying vise, sorting through his neck feathers and homemade bodkins in an effort to make sense of his own fly-tying tendencies within the larger, centuries-old tradition. "Tying our own flies is where many of us go off the deep end in fly fishing," he admits in the introduction as a caveat emptor. Non-tiers might lose interest in the subsequent chapters of seeming arcana covering everything from the pros of spade hackle (essential for dry-fly tails) to the cons of beadheads (they're ugly). But amid this abundance of information and opinion, Gierach's puckish, Twain-like sensibilities poke through just enough so that any fly-fisher with a taste for the sport's hallowed literature, regardless of whether he ties his own, can settle back with a copy of Good Flies and enjoy the drift. Gierach has been around. He remembers when Dave's hopper first jumped into the scene as well as the nutty "graduate students" in the '70s who fished with "dinky little, otherwise useless rods, pocket-watch-sized reels, and leaders as fine as spider web" in order to catch the midge hatch before anyone really knew what a midge was. Tiers may take issue with some points, but they're more than likely to come away with some new ideas, too. It's all part of the ongoing riverside chat that John Gierach has been having with fly-fishers for the past two decades. -- Langdon Cook

USA Today
Gierach’s skill lies in turning maddening frustration into fun.

Sports Illustrated
If Mark Twain were alive and a modern-day fly fisherman, he still would be hard put to top John Gierach.