2008, Streamside Press, Lyons, Colorado.
These are the stories of 34 fly tyers in over 300 pages, perhaps the greatest in the world, including legendary anglers, professional tyers, fly-fishing guides, and writers. The book focuses on the featured tyers, but it also details, with recipes and color photos, 68 of their favorite fly patterns. Colorado Trout Flies presents a unique and invaluable reference from veteran fly-fishing guide, Todd Hosman who lives near Longmont, Colorado. He is also the author of Fly Fishing Rocky Mountain National Park and Fly Fishing Colorado’s Front Range.
A.K. Best comments on the Colorado Trout Flies by saying, “Todd Hosman has written a fly tying book like no other. I know some of you may find that hard to believe, but it’s true. Colorado Trout Flies reads like a who’s who of noted Colorado fly tyers and some of the patterns they are known for. But more important, the book contains a short biographical sketch of each tyer that gives the reader some insight on what drove them to create flies that have become local and national standards. Colorado Trout Flies is destined to become a classic not only because of the reasons mentioned above, but also because the fly patterns will fool trout anyplace.”
John Gierach says, “One of my favorite things about this book is that I’m in it, even though I don’t tie professionally and never invented a fly pattern. All I’ve ever done is tinker with flies as I tied them for my own use, now and then coming up with minor changes that either made an existing pattern slightly better or at least didn’t do any real harm. At least at the amateur level, fly tying is like folk music: The songs may be the same, but every banjo picker adds his own licks. That’s why I appreciate Todd’s biographical approach and what I’ll call his sensitivity to the subject (for lack of a better term). A lazier writer would have run through a standard questionnaire with each tyer, filling in the bare facts and quite possibly missing the point. But Todd was smart enough to start fresh each time, asking the single, not so simple question: Who are these people? There’s also a loose thread of community running through the book, although Todd has the good taste not 
to make more of it than there is. It’s just that some of us who tie flies in Colorado are good friends who have fished together for years, while others are passing acquaintances or are known only by reputation. Some of us have bumped into each other over the years, usually at fly shops, and have made either lasting or fleeting impressions. Flies aren’t tied in a vacuum. There’s a nearly invisible web of cross-pollination that most of us are only vaguely aware of. When I get a new fishing guide-book, I’ll usually look up the rivers I’m familiar with to see of the author got it right, and that’s what I did with Colorado Trout Flies. I read the sections on the tyers I know – some well, others more casually – and Todd invariably nailed them. You don’t just learn about where they came from and how they got into fly tying, you also get a sense of their style, philosophy and humor and of their lives before or outside fly fishing. The conceit in outdoor writing has always been that fishermen are all pretty much the same. The truth is, we’re all pretty much different.”
Rim Chung is featured in the book, as is his RS2 and Plebby. Originally priced at $69.95, but now available for a lot less, this book is a must have for any serious fly tier or fly fisherman.
The book made me realize how many of my fly fishing
friends and acquaintances are truly famous or those that should be, including Mary Bartholowmew, A.K. Best, John Betts, Jim Cannon, Rim Chung, Charlie Craven, Pat Dorsey, Ed Engle, John Gierach, Ken Iwasama, Shane Stalcup, Rick Takahashi, Gordon Wickstrom, and Coloradoans Mike Bilo, Mike Bostwick, Barry Conyers, Gary Dewey, John Hagen, and a host of my other fishing friends and fly tiers made along the sporting road.
