book on dry fly patterns?

[alexcontino]

I have started to tie flies to refill my boxes in preparation for the trouty time of year. Does any one have any recommendations for a book for all the insects and patterns. I'm trying be more systematic with my fly tying so that I can minimize the "Crap! I don't have that fly!" feeling. I am living in the finger lakes area, and will likely be fishing the West Branch of the Delaware a lot more this year... if that means anything.

[RileyVacinek]

unfortunately that feeling is unavoidable imo. The choices are almost limitless and I am personally very bad at choosing so I like to keep it to the standards (parachute, elk hair caddis, comparadun, standard terrestrials) and tie them different colors and sizes to match the hatch. This means all I have to do is get ahold of a hatch chart and some pictures and I'm good to go.The one on this site is great and as far the WBD goes Weamer's Fly Fishing Guide To the Upper Deleware was definitely a good place to start. The trout nut website has tons of pictures of the hatches in that area of the state and is also a great reference. I also like having a ton of Nick's biot emerger because it is fun and pretty easy to tie and is a great all around pattern and like the others I mentioned, is very easily tweaked to different hatches.

[jeffraz]

Riley put it nicely. For me, the more flies for selective trout the better. In addition to Riley's suggestions I suggest The Fly Patterns of Yellowstone by Craig Mathews and John Juracek. Stalcup's Mayflies: Top to Bottom and Rene Harrop's Trout Hunter are also great resources (sorry Nick, I know you hate CDC). Although some of these books are from a Western perspective, the flies are easily adaptable to our bugs here (usually a change in body color does the trick). Happy tying!

[alexcontino]

Thanks for the advice. I have mostly gotten by on comparaduns and hair wing emergers. I am looking to expand both my fly box and my knowledge of the insects themselves. I am mostly looking for a book or maybe two separate books that I can use as a reference at the vice and on the river.

[RileyVacinek]

I saw a waterproof stream side reference that I completely forgot about until now that I hope to get my hands on. It was an excellent book for both stream side and bench reference. it had extremely nice color photos of each insect with tons of different views and I'm pretty sure it was written on eastern hatches. I remember the book spiral bound.

Edit: Found It! Check out the amazon preview. Someone else may be able to credit this as a good resource but it looks great to me!
www.amazon.com/The-Mayfly-Guide-Identifying-Spinners/dp/0979903793

[johnbenish]

Take a look at Trout Flies The Tier's Reference by Dave Hughes. A great pattern guide and also does a lot of step by step illustrating, well done. A little pricy, but covers most of what I've needed for trout. Agree with book on Delaware, also find a copy of Charles Meck's book. Too many times I've found a pattern and haven't been able to figure out the best way to get to the end result, so I appreciate it when there are pointers on how to get there rather than just a picture or drawing of the end result. Another good book is the one by Ted Fausceglia, Mayflies, has beautiful photos of the live bug then has very good examples of what to try using.

[byronfishpaw]

Not just on Dry flys, but Handbook of Hatches by Dave Hughes is really good on explaining bug behavior and how to imitate the behavior.

[Nick Pionessa]

for mayflies- hatches 2- Caucci & Nastasi

for caddis- Caddisflies- Lafontaine

if you look at the hatch chart here you will notice i'm sticking to the most likely insects you'll see. there are many, many others of less importance but still might show up and "ruin" your day. the only answer i have to that is to bring a tying kit for any trip more than a day or two. you always have at least a little down time each trip to whip up a few just right ones. that chart should give you enough info to be prepared for NYS and PA.

[WylieSchroederHaggerty]

Hey Alex,

As mentioned earlier Hatches and Caddisflies are a staple. Another great book worth having is "Matching Major Eastern Hatches, New Patterns for Selective Trout" by Henry Ramsay. A good thing about Ramsay book is that he covers Mayflies & Caddisflies along with terrestrials and is specific to our region.