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Book details
  • Genre:SPORTS & RECREATION
  • SubGenre:Fishing
  • Language:English
  • Pages:190
  • Paperback ISBN:9781543951493

Fly Fishing Colorado's Backcountry

by Ronald Belak

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Overview
This is a how-to book primarily aimed at the backcountry angler in Colorado, but about half of the book is applicable to fly fishing for trout anywhere. It is a soft cover in an 8.5 by 11-inch format with almost 450 color photos and almost 200 pages.
Description
This how-to book on fly fishing is aimed primarily at the backcountry angler in Colorado but is relevant to fly fishing for trout anywhere. It consists of an organized collection of over 40 essays that were previously published in Colorado Outdoors magazine, the official publication of Colorado Parks and Wildlife, from 1994 through 2018. All essays were updated in 2018, and the book is illustrated with almost 450 color photos. It is a soft cover in an 8.5 by 11-inch format and contains almost 200 pages. The book consists of seven logical chapters. The first chapter contains basic information on high-mountain lakes, small streams and backpacking. Chapter 2 instructs the reader on how to go about researching and preparing for fishing the Colorado backcountry. Chapter 3 consists of seasonal strategies, with particular emphasis on stillwaters. Fly-fishing techniques and equipment are covered in the fourth chapter, including dry-fly fishing, nymphing stillwaters, streamer tactics and tenkara. Chapter 5 gives insight into fish biology and offers techniques on how to pursue brook trout and cutthroats--the two species of trout most common in the Colorado backcountry. Entomology, fly patterns and fly tying are the subject of Chapter 6. Essays in this chapter stress the difference between the entomology in the backcountry and the more accessible and frequently fished rivers. This chapter also emphasizes easily tied versatile patterns. Chapter 7 includes a few articles that did not neatly fit into the other chapters.
About the author

Ron Belak is an award-winning photographer from Evergreen, Colorado. He has fished the Colorado backcountry as an adult for 40 years. In that time, he has fished about 600 different high lakes and small reservoirs in Colorado, as well as a number in Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Alaska, British Columbia, Alberta and Argentina. Educated as a scientist with degrees in geology and significant coursework in the biological sciences, he approaches fly fishing from an analytical perspective, trying to describe what techniques, strategies, equipment and patterns work and what is the scientific basis for why they work. Ron Belak has published about 75 articles in Colorado Outdoors magazine, and his writing and photography also has appeared in Fly Fisherman and American Angler magazines. He is a frequent presenter at chapter meetings of Trout Unlimited, other fly-fishing clubs and the Fly Fishing Show in Denver.