Your Fly Choice

Selecting the correct fly on a River or Stillwater: Is it just pure luck, or more of an informed guess?

It started over 500 years ago ...

With a pretty famous lady in these parts - she went by the name of Mother Shipton.

As well as making traditional remedies, Mother Shipton had another gift. She could predict the future.

It started off with small premonitions but as she practised, she became more confident and her powers grew. Soon she was known as Knaresborough’s Prophetess, a witch. She made her living telling the future. After a long life, she died in 1561, aged 73.

Legend has it that she foretold the fates of several rulers within and just after her lifetime, as well as the invention of iron ships, the Great Fire of London in 1666, and the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

"How does this relate to fly fishing?" I can hear you shouting at your screen. Well, we shouldn't need to consult a 'prophetess' or 'soothsayer' before we head out to the river - although you can if you think it would help!

What we really need is something which will help us gain the knowledge to allow us to make these decisions ourselves, and that's where our River & Stillwater Almanacs comes in ...

Our Almanacs

Successful fly fishing is all about observation - carefully watching what is happening all around you, and then translating this information into your choice of fly and technique. As always there is no substitute for experience, but there are a few shortcuts you can use to help you gain that experience quicker.

These books help you with gaining experience (and knowledge) quickly. They identify, for each month of the year, what hatches you should be looking out for and which flies to use to imitate the insects hatching around you.

Please Note

For 2025 our Almanacs have not changed from the ones we published in 2024 - we took the decision last year to separate the Almanac and Diary sections, if you did buy one of our Almanacs last year (thank you), you can now purchase the 2025 Diary/Catch Return section individually by clicking here - they're only £3.99.

We've taken on board feedback from previous issues of our Almanacs - the main negative being that the book was too big to carry around with you.

One other issue we found was that we were essentially writing a variation on the same theme each year - as weather conditions and insect hatches don't alter much from year to year.

So, last year, we made two very important changes:

1. We made them physically smaller - it is A6 (4.1" x 5.8") rather than A5. We've kept the font sizes the same and doubled the number of pages!  It now fits nicely in your pocket or glovebox.
2. We made the Diary/Catch Return portion a separate book in itself (which is supplied FREE OF CHARGE with either Almanac). This means that next year, you only need to replace the Diary/Catch Return (at £3.99) to keep a record of your adventures.

Doing the above has allowed us to cut our production costs, meaning we can pass these savings on to you.

When you buy either our River or Stillwater Almanac you also receive the 2025 Diary/Catch Return Book free of charge.

These are journals to accompany you throughout your fly fishing year. Something you can annotate and make notes in, allowing you to refer back to in years to come - helping you ‘crack the code’ on those difficult days. We’ve called them Almanacs as they take their inspiration from a few different sources, think of them as cross overs between:

Old Moore’s Almanac - An annual publication that prophecies what will happen throughout the year - only this one is fly fishing related.

The Fly Fishers Entomology - A seminal publication from 1836 by Alfred Ronalds, the first to detail river fly life from the angler's point of view.

A Moleskine Diary - As used by Van Gogh, Picasso & Ernest Hemingway

Both of our River and Stillwater Almanacs follow the fly anglers year - starting next week (March) and ending in February - detailing the hatches and flies to use for each month. Here's an excerpt from the River Almanac for March:

I'm a firm believer that each water has its own nuances as far as fishing (and the fish contained within it) are concerned, and that the most successful anglers on any given body of water are the ones with the most experience of it.

Generally in life, there are no shortcuts, but there are ways to help your experience along a little quicker - and owning A Fly Anglers Almanac is one of them!

We are today re-launching all our fly fishing Almanacs (we've just had them reprinted). They're both 140 pages long and we have two different editions for you to choose from:

• Paperback Edition - only £12.99; or
• Digital Edition (a pdf download) - only £5.99

You can see more sample pages by clicking on any image or button contained in this email.

Not convinced yet? Here's what some of our customers said about our Fly Anglers Almanacs ...

Happy reading.

 

P.S. If you want to find out more about Mother Shipton, you can click here. The image and text used to describe her above were taken from their website, why not take a look?