Floating Flies and How To Dress Them - Reviews

Reviews

• In 1894 the N.Y. Times wrote of Floating Flies and How to Dress Them:

And now I come to books which are nothing if not practical. Of these, Mr. F. M. Halford's “Floating Flies and How to Dress Them,” and his “Dry Fly Fishing in Theory and Practice,” command the first place, as being, within certain limits, the best books on fishing with the artificial fly ever written. The limits are these. His books apply to the capture or brown trout and grayling only, salmon and sea trout being outside their purview.

• In 1913, Emlyn M.Gill writing for the N.Y. Times said:

...when, in 1886, Mr. Halford published an important work on “Floating Flies and How to Dress Them.” he had practically a virgin field before him. His Dry-Fly Fishing in Theory and Practice,” published in 1889, became the standard work upon the subject.

• John Waller Hills, the noted British fly fishing historian of the early 20th century said: Halford is the historian of the dry fly, with his first book leading the way to the spread of dry-fly fishing across the globe.

• In his American Fly Fishing - A History (1987) Paul Schullery writes:

The dry-fly revolution that really got rolling with the appearance of Halford's first book, Floating Flies and How to Dress Them (1886) got plenty of attention in American books and articles.

• In The Fly (2001), fly fishing historian Andrew Herd discusses the influence Halford's book had on fly fishing outside of England:

It is hard to state how great Halford's influence was. His name became almost synonymous with chalk stream fishing and his innovations did not go unnoticed abroad. It was Halford's work that insprired M. Albert Petit to write the book that re-introduced and popularized fly fishing in France. .... Halford was also an important influence on American fly-tying: by 1888 Floating Flies and How to Dress Them could be purchased for twelve dollars from Forest and Stream and his flies were available from William and Mills of New York in the same year.

• In F. M. Halford and the Dry-Fly Revolution (2002), Tony Hayter says of Floating Flies:

The response from the public to this impressive book was a first very favorable. Halford's scrapbook contains twenty-seven review notices, in which positive and gratifying adjectives abound: 'Practical, and at the same time delightfully-written', 'Thorough, clear and interesting', 'His almost unequalled experience', 'A real treat to get a book so plain and purposelike, and so beautifully got up in all respects'. The Field thought it 'something more than deeply interesting...a landmark.' The Globe wrote: 'The directions are beautifully clear, and anglers will be specially delighted with the illustrations.' Punch awarded the accolade in verse form: A capital volume, and no one will doubt it; No fisherman now should ever be without it.

• Paul Schullery writes in: Halford on the Dry Fly (2008):

Halford's first book: Floating Flied and How to Dress Them (1886) was a concise and beautiful fly tying manual and fly pattern reference book, but contained only a brief chapter on how to actually fish with dry flies.