Fly Fishing Books: Dave Whitlock Updates Fly-Fishing Handbook

We just got our hands on the newly released second edition of Dave Whitlock’s L.L. Bean Fly-Fishing Handbook, which was first published ten years ago, and it improves on one of the best introductions to fly fishing ever produced. If you’re not familiar with the first edition, it covered the gamut: tackle, casting, tactics, biology, foods and fly tying. The new edition adds more on saltwater fly fishing, ethics, and fishing from boats and float-tubes. Whitlock is a surprisingly good illustrator and of course an excellent teacher, and there is an enormous amount of insight and guidance packed into 192 pages. Our only quibbles with the book are minor: the knots chapter seems somewhat incomplete without the inclusion of some newer knots, and the appendix listing publications is missing some important new titles. L.L. Bean Fly-Fishing Handbook, Second Edition on Amazon.