We live in a world that is hooked on a drug called instant gratification. We’re the McDonalds generation. We want things to be quick and we don’t want to expend too much energy obtaining them either. Tyers are no different. Post a photo of a nice nymph on Facebook or Instagram and the almost immediate response will be ‘pattern please’ or ‘video please,’ as if patterns and videos are all you need to successfully tie the fly.

What is sorely lacking in today’s society is the concept of some form of a cognitive thought process. Sure you can tie by numbers as it were, but that will always be limiting or even restrictive. The path to fly tying enlightenment it would seem lies in understanding the logic behind what makes effective flies effective. To do this you need to get to grips with the details. And don’t confuse the idea that detail means complexity. At their heart, the most important details are simple. And there’s endless inspiration in that.

In The Feather Mechanic 2 we go on a fly tying journey with some of the best tyers on the planet. They take us through their thought processes behind the patterns they write about and unpack the details behind what makes these flies the killer fishing tools that they are. The book is pregnant with illustrations because a picture paints a thousand words. With over 200 hand drawn pictures that’s a book jam packed with fly-tying goodness.