Stillwater flies reference book?

[HookInMouth]

I am going to miss the reference type material that was found in the old forum messages, which leads me to this post. A while back the Stillwater experts on this site posted about a reference book for Stillwater flies. I seem to remember some title like "Productive Stillwater Flies", but online searches turn up nothing. Could somebody be so kind to repost the titles and authors for good reference books of this type. I would like to spend some time this winter tying up some new Stillwater files.

[mcgx2]

A book I bought about 15 years ago is LAKE FISHING WITH A FLY; Ron Cordes & Randall Kaufmann; Frank Amato Publications. It has a lot of good information, covers all the food sources and associated fishing stragety, recommends flies but does not give recipes for the flies it recommends.
mcg

[Jason]

There are two books that might interest you:

Effective Lake Flies: A float tubing guide to productive patterns.
Author: Mike Andreasen (UT resident) and Allan Ryther
1990

Productive Stillwater Flies
Author: Mike Andreasen and Dennis Brakke (both UT residents)
2001

Both books are great. I've learned a lot about the simplicity of lake fishing techniques and fly patterns. You'll definitely learn something new with these two books. Most local fly shops have them.

[cardiac]

Jason has two good books there, I have Productive Stillwater Flies
very informative. Here's Dennis' website. http://flydesk.com
He lives in West Valley.
Also Denny Rickards has some good books. "Fly Fishing for Trophy Trout" and "FlyFishing the West's Best Trophy Trout"
This is his website http://www.flyfishingstillwaters.com/
Anglers Inn and Fish Tech Rickards books.
One more book that is good is and has some excellent patterns is "Fishing Henrys Lake" by Bill Schiess

[Jeff Brooks]

I agree, those are about the best books on Stillwater patterns that I'm aware of...

Better yet, get out and talk to other Stillwater fly fisherman to learn what works best for them on your favorite local waters. If you talk to enough fellow anglers out on the water, over time, you'll put together a superior collection of Stillwater patterns tuned to the areas you like to fish.

I've found for instance that after tying just about every pattern in the above-mentioned books, that many of those patterns simply do not produce as well on Strawberry or Schofield (my favorite Stillwater ponds) as some of the more popular patterns that have been developed specifically for those waters. I've ended up culling a lot of flies from my boxes over time because they simply don't produce the number of strikes per hour that I'm looking for… I only keep the patterns that consistently produce high numbers of strikes when I fish them.

An example: Last winter I tied a full box of flies containing every one of Denny Rickards' patterns and then I did a lot of experimenting this past season with his patterns and I found that some of them produced quite well, while others were obviously inferior to similar patterns that are tied for the local waters and which are known to produce well on our local waters.

I've also found that there are many patterns that seem to work well no mater where you fish, and there are also some patterns that I've found only work on one body of water???

That's half the fun of it; you have to be willing to experiment by trial and error. You could do worse than by going to some of the local fly shops and asking for recommendations for the ponds you like to fish. That will at least get you started on putting together a good selection of Stillwater patterns.

Enjoy,

Jeff

[HookInMouth]

Thanks for all the great help. It looks like I need to start with a trip to my local fly shop.

[Wes Johnson]

The best books I have come across are Kaufmann's "Lake Fishing With a Fly" and Rickards "Fly Fishing for Trophy Trout."

I attended one of Denny Rickards seminars at Deseret two Junes ago and it was great. Having read his book and then listened to him in person, I caught a plethora of trout faster than I had ever done before, and I have fished Deseret for many years.

Denny has proven patterns and proven techniques. I highly recommend his books. If he is in town at the Sportsman's Expo in March, I would definitely plan to attend one of his seminars.