Attorney G. E. M. Skues drew upon his vast experience as a recreational fisherman to write this masterpiece of the fly fishing genre, in which he established sunken flies as essential tools for the well-equipped angler. Originally published in 1921, this seminal book retains its relevance in a world in which the quiet pleasures of river fishing remain unchanged. Professional, competitive, and amateur fishermen as well as beginners will appreciate its timeless wisdom.

British fly fishing historian Dr. Andrew Herd hailed the author as "without any doubt one of the greatest trout fishermen that ever lived. His achievement was the invention of fly fishing with the nymph, a discovery that put a full stop to half a century of stagnation in wet fly fishing for trout, and formed the bedrock for modern sunk fly fishing." Paul Schullery, an American fly fishing historian, seconds this view, adding, "[Skues] was also a modest, humorous, and warmly accessible writer whose writings never lost sympathy for his fellow anglers. His self-deprecating and deceptively simple-sounding writings on trout and fly fishing remain among the wisest and most revealing in the sport's enormous literature."