Gearing up for all types of trout fishing on creeks, rivers, tailwaters, and lakes Casting, selecting a fly, and reading the water and finding trout

Dave Hughes's clear and simple instruction and explanation describes 18 trout rigs and 81 methods to fish them. In moving water: rigs and methods for dry flies and emergers, nymphs, wet flies, streamers, and dry flies and droppers. In stillwater: dry flies and sunk flies.Fly fishers learn the specifics of the rig--types of fly line, lengths and tapers of leader and tippet, the flies, and split shot, putty weight, strike indicators, droppers, point flies, and indicators--and the full array of methods to present the rig to the trout. Hughes's lucid text is teamed with hundreds of instructive illustrations, including those showing how the trout views the fly. The more rigs you learn to construct and the more methods you learn to apply, the more situations you'll solve, and the more trout you'll catch.

Fundamentals for the beginning fly fisher including tips on rod and reel selection, tackle and tying techniques, basic and advanced casting methods, and more.

If you fly fish, you need flies. Which ones to choose for taking trout? Here are the 50 proven, go-to patterns that every trout fly fisher should carry to catch trout almost all the time, anywhere in the world of trout streams and still waters. From the hundreds of trout patterns available to today's fly fisher, Hughes-in quintessential minimalist style-cuts through the complicated choices and gives a basic selection of essential trout flies that fit in a fly box or two and cover the broad spectrum of trout fishing conditions. This new edition-with 1/3 new material, 20 additional patterns, and 300 variations-addresses the changes in fly preference over the last 15 years with some old patterns dropped for new styles tied with new materials and tying techniques.

A brilliantly funny Christmas picture book that will make you laugh out loud! Martha May has marvellous manners, especially at Christmas - after all, that's the most important time of year to be nice! So Martha writes very neat cards and gives very thoughtful gifts... and she never forgets to leave delicious snacks for Santa and his reindeer! But when Martha May gives Santa a giant Christmas pudding, something very unusual happens. Oh no, what have you done, Martha May?! Perfect for fans of The Dinosaur Who Pooped Christmas, children will love this very silly Christmas picture book about a very smelly Santa! Created by Dave Hughes, a much-loved Australian stand-up comedian, television and radio presenter and Holly Ife, who is a successful journalist and children's book author With laugh-out-loud illustrations by the bestselling Philip Bunting If you love Christmas, Santa and silliness, then you will love this book!

"Excellent ... invaluable." -- The New York Times, on Dave Hughes

• Popular reference work updated with full-color photos of the insects
• An understandable approach and useful guide to fishing hatches
• Covers mayflies, caddisflies, stoneflies, midges, dragonflies, boatmen, alderflies, and hellgrammites

Fishing success comes from making wise observations on stream and acting on them right away. In Handbook of Hatches, Hughes teaches how to match the hatch and not worry about identifying the insect until later, if at all, and to fish better, focus on shape, size, and color to choose the best fly for the situation.

Hughes takes a subject that has been considered complex and confusing and makes it understandable, presenting the information that you really need to improve your tying and your fishing. Nymphs for Streams and Stillwaters is the step-by-step reference to tying and fishing every nymph. Filled with good advice from a trusted master of the subject, it is the most thorough and enjoyable book about selecting, tying, and fishing nymphs that has ever been written. Nymphs for Streams and Stillwaters provides a sound understanding of the relationship between naturals and their imitations, and between those imitations and the trout. You'll learn what nymphs you should spend your time tying, you'll learn how to tie them, and most important, you'll learn where and how to fish them in order to catch more trout. Nymphs for Streams and Stillwaters is broken logically into four parts. The first part is an introduction to the way nymphing shapes itself with notes on streamside and lakeside observation, nymph selection based on what you observe, and recommendations on tools and materials for both basic and advanced methods for tying nymphs that take trout. The second part deals with the selection and detailed tying of all sorts of effective searching nymph patterns for moving water. The third part examines imitative nymphs for moving waters, tightly relating naturals to their imitations. The fourth part covers stillwater nymphs. Trout are more often selective in lakes and ponds, and the things they eat in stillwaters are often unlike trout foods in rivers and streams.

A reflective, insightful, and enthusiastic collection of stories and essays about Hughes' home waters on the Oregon coast, An Angler's Astoria is an ode to familiar fishing. A new epilogue complements and completes the original stories. The stories describe and define a time and a place: the fly-fishing adventures and misadventures that Hughes had growing up on the Oregon coast, and the lives, from tiny aquatic insects through trout, steelhead, and salmon, up to deer and elk, cougars and bears, and on to that most mischievous animal of all-humans-that he encountered while prowling his native rivers and streams, ponds, and lakes. Universal and timeless, these stories apply not just to fly fishing but to many other aspects of living a life in any time, and in every place. The book became a quiet classic, and it's as current and important today as it was the day it arrived. Both humble and humorous, it's a delightful and informative read wherever in the world you might find your own adventures, with or without a fly rod in your hand.