Your weekly online magazine for
Fishing and Outdoor Recreation
in northern British Columbia, Canada

Published each Friday

|

Last week we gave recommendations on videos and TV shows worth watching. This week we will let you know of a few books and some of the better Internet sites worth visiting.

Type in fishing on a Netscape search and guess how many times fishing comes up? An incredible 978,003 times. Is this a popular sport or do anglers just like to talk? We didn't have quite enough time to check out all the sites, after all, we still have to leave some time to fish. Here are just a few of the best.

Internet

Outdoor Life and Field and Stream magazines have both been around for over 100 years. Our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers read these magazines. Through their pages we learned and lived the outdoor experience. They survived over 100 years of publication by constantly letting us know of new techniques, places to go, new equipment, great photos and humor. Now you can continue to learn via your computer. Visit them
www.outdoorlife.com
www.fieldandstream.com
Fly Fisherman is one of the premier fly fishing magazines. Their website is superb with lots of tip and technique articles, a huge fly tying gallery of patterns. Visit them
www.flyshop.com
BC Outdoors combined with BC Sportfishing, to become BC Outdoors Sport Fishing, a purely BC fishing magazine. Here you will find the best that BC has to offer. Good editorials, state of the resource, tips and techniques, where to go. Visit them
www.bcosportfishing.com
The Anglers Atlas gives you access maps to many of the provinces lakes, depth charts and stocking data, an invaluable resource for the provinces anglers. Constantly updated as new maps and charts get added. Visit them
www.anglersatlas.com
American Angler is another of the fly fishing specialty magazines on the newsstand. Lots of good info for the fly aficionado. Visit them
www.americanangler.com
Fly Rod and Reel again a fly only publication and a good website.Visit
www.flyrodreel.com

These are only a few. You can check out the other 979,996 sites at a later date.

(All previous issues are stored in the ARCHIVE for your convenience)

Books

We left books till the last, not intentionally, because nothing beats a good book for relaxation. Like websites there are a myriad of book titles. Many books are very enjoyable reading, fish specific and technique oriented. Others try to be an encyclopedia and touch on everything. Some books, such as my favorite author John Gierach, just write on the fishing as life aspect, very funny and you can relate many of his experiences to your own.
Here are a few titles that can accelerate your learning curve.

Morris and Chan on Fly Fishing the Trout Lakes. If you really want to learn how to fly fish for trout in lakes, this is the book. Detailed chapters on the trout's diet, techniques, boat and float tube setup, drawings to show how to position yourself, proper retrieves, lake fly patterns. A great partner to Brian Chan's videos on fishing the lakes.
The Trout and the Stream by Charles E. Brooks. Charles did much pioneering work on how trout feed in the stream, insect identification, methods and conservation. A classic in its field.
Nymph Fishing for Larger Trout by Charles E. Brooks. Another classic by Charles. Since 80-90% of a trout's diet is a nymph a good trout angler will need to know this book.
Steelhead Fly Fishing by Trey Combs. Trey started it all over 20 years ago, with his first book. He has outdone himself with this book. Almost 500 pages of steelhead lore. The men and women who pioneered the sport, the innovators, the rivers, the methods, fly patterns, photos. A great work. Someone once said this is the Bible of steelhead fishing, and 100 years from now it will still be thee book.
Advanced Fly Fishing for Steelhead by Deke Meyer. Another very good book on fishing for the beautiful steelhead. Advanced techniques with chapters on dry lines, sinking, nymphing, greased line and fly patterns.
How to Catch Trophy Halibut by Christopher Batin and Terry Rudnick. If you want to catch big halibut, this is your book. 23 different chapters with hundreds of tips on catching barn-door halibut. Learn all the secrets of the Alaskan guides that specialize in the big hali's.
How to Catch Salmon by Denis Reid. Denis, a graduate in zoology and biochemistry, has written possibly the most comprehensive book on catching salmon ever written. Along with the various methods of trolling, casting, mooching and drift fishing you will better understand ocean conditions, salmon behavior, biology, boat and gear set up. If you want to be more productive on the saltchuck read this.
Of course there are many other books on the market, but the above books, we have found in most cases, to be the definitive books on the subjects.

More of Bob's photos on the Photo page