G.E.M. Skues, 1921

his is a classic and I often wonder if Skues knew it would be when he set pen to paper. The book is inspirational in a way that Halford's work never was and grips the reader's attention right from the cover, which in the first edition bears the words:

When the Wise Man laid it down that there were three things which were too wonderful for him - yea, four which he knew not - he came to the climax with "the way of a man with a maid." Some future Solomon will end with a fifth - the way of a trout with a fly - for it combines the poise of the eagle in the air, the swift certainty of a serpent upon a rock, and the mystery of a ship in the midst of the sea, with the incalculableness of the way of a man with a maid.

The Way of a Trout shows Skues at the height of his powers and it contains the best of his thinking on fishing nymphs and semi-submerged patterns, illustrated by the sort of asides, stories and vast fund of experience that only he could call upon.