Blue Upright: The Flies of a Lifetime - Hardcover

Steve Raymond is author of Rivers of the Heart, Steelhead Country (both published by Lyons Press), The Year of the Angler, The Year of the Trout and other fly-fishing books. A winner of the Roderick Haig-Brown Award for significant contributions to angling literature, Raymond also has been editor of two magazines, The Flyfisher and Fly Fishing in Salt Waters, and a long-time reviewer of fly-fishing books for several publications. He retired after a thirty-year career as an editor and manager at the Seattle Times and now lives on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound.

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