Vincent Marinaro, 1976

incent Marinaro's odyssey into the world of scientific angling began with A Modern Dry Fly Code and ended with this book, which remains the most complete and the most readable work in a genre that began with James Rennie's Alphabet of Angling, early in the last century.

The core of this work is the photographs, which are the illustrations of an enquiry that the author began shortly after the second world war and which come as close as anyone has yet managed to show our world from a trout's point of view. This book does not attempt to blind anyone with science; it isn't difficult to read and for the most part it is pure common sense, but even an expert fisherman stands to gain from reading it. The chapter on reading riseforms is a masterpiece and the pictures showing the way the wings of a dun separate and tower above the body of the fly as it advances towards the mirror are outstanding.

There are chapters on trout vision, on the anatomy of rises, on rod design, hidden hatches and the inevitable section (for Marinaro) on terrestrials and small patterns. Though the section on rods has dated and Marinaro's fly patterns haven't set the world alight, this is a book which everyone should read.

If you enjoyed this work, try Goddard and Clarke's The Trout and the Fly, published a few years later and which takes a slightly different approach to the same subject.