Product Details
Blue Upright: The Flies of a Lifetime

Blue Upright: The Flies of a Lifetime
By Steve Raymond

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Product Description

An essential book of flies for people who tie them and fish with them.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #723872 in Books
  • Published on: 2004-08-01
  • Original language: English
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 224 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Taking its name from one of the author's favorite fly patterns, this book takes a look at the top dozen fly fishing lures in Raymond's vast tackle collection. Focusing on one fly at a time, Raymond breaks down each fly's origins, how it is made and how and for what fish he employs it. Most importantly, Raymond uses these rather technical fishing narratives as an impetus to explore cherished personal memories as well as a host of fishing and related nonfishing topics close to his heart. Some of Raymond's tangents are strictly for diehard fishermen, as when he discusses the many fly boxes, in various shapes and sizes, that he keeps his precious flies in or when he looks at various controversies over who first tied a fly pattern. Other memories are more universal, as when he muses about the last time he fished with his father or when he wonders what his favorite river might have looked like 200 years ago. Raymond's storytelling and writing skills enable him to seamlessly work these varied topics into cohesive chapters that both inform and amuse. And no matter where Raymond's thoughts take him, he's always able to convey how each of these tiny fishing flies has affected his life in a big way. Illus.
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Review

Few angler-authors can match the skill and insight of Steve Raymond...Through the seasons of the angler's year, Raymond leads his reader to a refined and refreshed understanding of what the natural world is really all about. --Nelson Bryant, The New York Times


With Blue Upright, Steve Raymond proves once again why he is the Raymond Carver of fly-fish lit. With elegant, unadorned precision, Steve offers the biographies of his favorite flies, which blossom into an autobiography of Steve Raymond and a history of fly-fishing for salmon, trout and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest, with side trips after bonefish and Atlantic salmon. It is complex wisdom simply presented, and belongs on any literate fly-fisher¹s bookshelf. ­ James R. Babb, Editor, Gray¹s Sporting Journal

From the Back Cover

For the fly fisher, creating images of a living insect from fur, feathers, or synthetic materials is an art and a passion requiring “imagination and skill, creativity and discipline, patience and vision,” according to renowned fly tyer and author Steve Raymond.
The fly patterns in Blue Upright are among those that have served Raymond most faithfully over the years, the favorite flies of a long angling life. Some flies, such as the Crazy Charlie, are widely known; others are relatively unknown outside of the Pacific Northwest. Included are some of his own patterns which he uses alone or shares with only a few close friends. Let him share some of his fly recipes and warm-hearted, crisply detailed fishing stories with you as he describes the Carey Special, Thompson’s Delectable Chironomid, the Green Machine, and, of course, the Blue Upright, among others.
All of Raymond’s personal favorites evoke vivid memories of the landscapes and the anglers (and the fish) that have passed through his life, images guaranteed to appeal to both beginning and experienced fly tyers. As followers of the hobby will
confirm, tying flies need not be an art of perfection when the only critics that matter are the fish.

In Blue Upright you’ll discover:

* Flies with bad hair days and lower-back problems
* How a controversial judge got a steelhead fly named after him
* Why some flies work and then mysteriously stop working
* The invention of Steve Raymond’s lethal Chironomid Suspender and Emerger
* Why the TDC influenced modern Northwest fly fishing more than any other pattern
* The origin of the Son of Salmon Candy
* Why the bonefish is the almost-perfect fly-fishing quarry
* f0 Why flies are important for other reasons than catching fish