Fly Fishing Afoot in the Surf Zone

It's a very small book. No more than 40 pages in letter format. But the advantage about these small books are several: they're fast and easy to read, they're concentrated (not room for chit-chat) and they're inexpensive. True for this book as well.

In the few pages Ken Hanley covers the salt water as a habitat, tide and moon, gives a run down on the important species and equipment, flies, knots and more. All is done in a focused and concentrated way that is just after my heart. Hanley gives some sound advice, and even though it's ment to apply to the special kind of surf fishing he does, I can see that it will apply to many other kinds of salt water fishing too.

There's nothing on flats fishing or fishing from a boat, but lots of facts and advice on fishing wading from the coast. Also Hanley removes the mystery and vastness of fishing the ocean in a way that falls much in line with my own way of seeing things.

One of the real treats of this book is the patterns. There are more than 20 patterns, each covered with a B/W picture and a list of materials. A few of them (too few) are depicted in color on the inner cover. Nice flies! All'n all the book is well illustrated in B/W.

The last part of the book gives a detalied spot-for-spot coverage of the West coast. This info isn't very usefull for me, but will probably be to those that have the specific water nearby.

I wish more people made more books like this: small and affordable and right on the target.