Every couple of years a new book about fly fishing and fly tying comes out that is a must have. The last book I got was Seasons of the Striper by William Sisson. While a nice book for the coffee table, for me, it lacked the lessons and teaching that I like in a book. Before that was Bob's Fleye Design. And historically there have been books by Tabory, Mitchell, Cowen, Caolo, Karas, DiBennetto, Abrames, Cole, and others which have taught and entertained us for decades. The best of them all, again to me, is Rich Murphy's Fly Fishing for Striped Bass. That's a must have for anyone fly fishing for striped bass.
Last week John Field's new book, Fly Fishing for Trophy Striped Bass, hit the delivery trucks and I received my copy before heading down to Hilton Head. It's a nice hardcover book that has over 250 pages of great tips and techniques as well as a nice synopsis of how and where to catch striped bass along the East and West Coasts as well as Canada. One thing that is impressive are the maps that come with each location talked about.
There's a solid chapter with fly recipes and photos from well known tiers, some that I know well like Stryker, Nelson, King and Whalley. When John was building his book he reached out to me for to submit some photos for consideration. I sent a bunch of pics of friends and clients iwi big bass from both boat and shore. I thought for sure Leif, Joe, or Andrew would be gracing the pages but the lone image picked was of me taken during Blitz-O-Week, October 31, 2014.
While I'll never forget that day, HERE, I'm kinda over that picture and realize I need to catch some better fish and get some more recent images. Fishing alone, and wanting to limi time out of the water, makes it hard to get some good and current images. No one has called for an image of a bass in The Tank, but if they do I'll have them covered.
Field's book is available from Amazon, HERE. It's $45.15 and with Prime there's free shipping. If you order it today most likely it'll be to you the next day or by the weekend.