Ernest G. Schwiebert published the first edition
of Nymphs
in 1973 but never ceased working on the project, and over the next
thirty years he continued his research into the entomology necessary to
successful trout fishing.
Fly fishers in the early twenty-first century are accustomed to myriad
types of artificial flies and approaches to catch trout, but back when
there were still many anglers who populated a rules-bound world of dry
flies and traditional wet flies, what Schwiebert said in the first
edition of this book was novel and heretical. Vincent Marinaro, author
of that touchstone American text, A Modern
Dry-Fly Code, and hero to Schwiebert, refused to
speak with the younger writer after Nymphs
first appeared, as this new book promoted a violation of form that was
unacceptable to the gentleman of the Letort Spring Run. Schwiebert,
however, stood solidly behind his methods of identifying, tying, and
fishing imitations of nymphs, a revolution in the sport. Ultimately,
critics hailed his highly original book as a landmark achievement in
both the art and science of fly fishing, and thousands of anglers today
carry fly boxes crammed with nymphs of various sizes and colors.
Now, the classic text has been fully revised and greatly
expanded—in two volumes—and includes taxonomic
details of multitudes of individual nymphs from many different insect
genera, hundreds of recipes for imitations, and digitally remastered
original illustrations and numerous new illustrations by the author.
Schwiebert backs his text with authoritative support from the classic
work of numerous entomologists, such as James Needham, Justin Leonard,
Jay Traver, and George Edmunds, and colors it with his stories of
fishing with legends of the sport, including John Hemingway, Charlie
Fox, and Joe Brooks. This new Nymphs
calls upon decades of angling experience—years that connect
extraordinarily different eras of fly-fishing—to present a
lasting, highly usable angler’s entomology for all of North
America.
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Nymphs
Volume I: The Mayflies
by Ernest G. Schwiebert
The Lyons Press, 2007
Order
a copy
Reviewed in
The
Nature Pages
Nymphs
Volume II: Stoneflies,
Caddisflies, and Other Important Insects: Including the Lesser Mayflies
by Ernest G. Schwiebert
The Lyons Press, 2007
Order
a copy
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