Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Few men can have made such an impact on the flyfishing world as the subject of this book George Edward Mackenzie Skues. Only history will show if some of the well known names of today participants in our chosen craft will in time rank alongside him. I suspect that such will not be the case for Skues was unique a one-off product of the Golden Age of angling. To allow of and to believe in idols is usually a quick way to shattered illusions. Idols tend to prove to have feet of clay. I have yet to discover such a flaw in G.E.M. Skues. My introduction to this flyfisher came about many years ago and like so many others it was via his classic work The Way of a Trout with a Fly. I had read many angling books prior to this one but never before had I ‘seemed to be so in tune with the author; witty gentle observant inventive never dogmatic aye here was a man with whom I would have loved to wander the banks of the river Itchen. Unfortunately I never did meet him… he was already fifty-two years of age before I was born within casting distance of the Driffield chalk stream in East Yorkshire….therefore I may be accused of falling into the “distance lends enchantment” frame of mind. This I will refute most vigorously. Historical research and discussions and correspondence with those who did know him have yet to disprove my original view that here was a great man. Readers who bear with me through this book will find that it falls into four parts: an account of Skues’ life and his writings; Skues the flydresser; his American Leonard rod that became known as the “W.B.R.” the World’s Best Rod; and the truly important part of this work Skues’ own writings that have only been previously published in the somewhat restricted confines of the Journal of the Flyfishers’ Club and must therefore be unknown to the majority of anglers.