Offseason Selections: Read, Flip, Skip
A selection of off-season reading material for the fly angler
February 2026
Ah, offseason reading. Ideas for new flies, techniques, new places to explore this season, or maybe just an escape. The horizon is widest at the beginning of the year.
If you’re looking for some off-season entertainment I’m here to chime in.
Read | Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway (1952)
Nature is as brutal as it is beautiful. I can’t imagine Hemingway wrote this one specifically for anglers, but then again maybe he did.
Flip | Matching Warmwater Baitfish - Kevin Feenstra (2025)
The book is rooted in Great Lakes fishing, so western anglers may only find limited use from some of the specifics highlighted here. Yet, Feenstra offers refreshing insights into streamer theory, tying with abundant flash, each presented alongside engaging underwater photography. We collectively overlook forage and baitfish too often, so this book sheds some needed light on the cool “other” fish found across North America. Flip through carefully, it took a fine tooth comb to extract the nuggets. I only wish the book could have held a broader scope.
Skip | Out of the Box Strategies - John Barr (2022)
Barr is a legend and his ideas are so integrated into modern fly angling that nothing presented here feels ground breaking or offers anything to match the “unconventional” angle from the title. Not much to extract that’s not found elsewhere.