Fly fishing

Fly fishing is an angling method in which an artificial "fly" is used to catch fish. The fly is cast using a fly rod, reel, and specialized weighted line. Casting a nearly weightless fly or "lure" requires casting techniques significantly different from other forms of casting. Fly fishermen use hand tied flies that resemble natural invertebrates, baitfish, other food organisms, or "lures" to provoke the fish to strike (bite at the fly).

Fly fishing can be done in fresh or salt water. North Americans usually distinguish freshwater fishing between cold-water species (trout, salmon, steelhead) and warm-water species, notably bass. In Britain, where natural water temperatures vary less, the distinction is between game fishing for trout and salmon versus coarse fishing for other species. Techniques for fly fishing differ with habitat (lakes and ponds, small streams, large rivers, bays and estuaries, and open ocean.)

Author Izaak Walton called fly fishing "The Contemplative Man's Recreation".

Fly Fishing (book)

Fly Fishing, first published in 1899 by English author and diplomat Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862-1933) is a book about fly fishing English chalk streams and spate rivers for trout and salmon. It includes reminisces about the author's fly fishing experiences on Hamptonshire rivers. The book was in print for nearly 50 years and has been extensively reprinted in the 21st century.

Synopsis

The work deals with fly fishing for trout, sea trout and salmon. Grey places presents fishing for sea trout as the pinnacle of fly fishing and describes the challenge of fly fishing for Atlantic salmon. On trout, he was the first writer of importance on the dry-fly who really knew what the wet-fly meant. Grey was an expert angler and he detailed much that is useful and instructive in prose that is clear and vigorous.

Author

Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon KG, PC, FZL, DL (25 April 1862 – 7 September 1933), better known as Sir Edward Grey, Bt, was a British Liberal statesman. He served as Foreign Secretary from 1905 to 1916, the longest continuous tenure of any person in that office. He is probably best remembered for his remark at the outbreak of the First World War: "The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time". Ennobled as Viscount Grey of Fallodon in 1916, he was Ambassador to the United States between 1919 and 1920 and Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords between 1923 and 1924. He also gained distinction as an ornithologist and angler.