Fly Fishing Warm Water Rivers - A New Book

Hey Guys;

I'd like to share my story will all of you. A couple years ago I got this
wild-ass idea that I wanted to write a book. I sat down and outlined the
project - chapters on prey items, game species, tackle needs, fly patterns,
seasonal tactics, etc.. The book is titled "Fly Fishing Warm Water Rivers"
and subtitled "Lesson's I've Learned on Ohio's Great Miami". My overwhelming
motivation was to publicize the amazingly good and effective fishing I've
managed to exploit on any number of midwestern warm water flows I've fished
in the last 20 years. Let me share a bit of that story first...

I moved to Ohio in October of 1984. I had lived in Massachusetts on the
south shore all my life and grew up fly fishing for salters, stripers and
bluefish (all with a fly rod - I built my first 10wt Lamiglass rod with a
lead core shooting system in 1978) on the coast and bass, trout and pickerel
on landlocked lakes and rivers (especially Bridgewater's Town River). When I
first saw the rocky, silt laden shallow rivers of the heartland I was
flummoxed. No way anything worth catching lived there!

Two years later I was polishing my casting chops on a local river with the
intention of fishing the MA coast on a trip "home". I was using the
aforementioned 10wt and a smallmouth bass simply nailed my size 3/0
Deceiver. The light went on (hey, I'm not that bright, okay?). There were
fish in that fetid water!

A couple decades later and I've kick seined, snorkeled, fished and mapped
hundreds of miles of these warm water freestone flows. I figured it was time
to share. So I wrote a book. It took me 14 months to get all my thoughts in
line and on paper (well, on screen anyway). I really liked the product as a
finished piece. Then the fun began.

I won't go into publishing issues other than to say if you are a first time
book author (I'm an modestly established advertising and marketing copy
writer, technical writer and I've been awarded the 2004 "Best Magazine
Column" award by the Outdoor Writers of Ohio for my work with Country
Anglin' Outdoor Guide) then the only thing the bigger publishing houses will
offer you is the opportunity to spend some of your own money and give them
all rights to your work in exchange for the possibility that if they make
some good money on the first work you might (MIGHT) get a second chance.

Editing was fun. I had an English Major ex-teacher wife of a friend do the
red ink work. Let me tell you right now - never try to edit your own book. A
magazine article maybe - but a book is way too much. Despite my best efforts
I just didn't see the dangling participles, conflicted tenses, shifts in
person and other issues that make a book stop flowing and just plug up like
a bad toilet. I've never seen so much red ink in my life! I was aghast. But
in
the end, the editing was successful and the finished product only has two or
three thousand subtle (some not so subtle, okay?) mistakes I've found. But
it IS better.

Graphic design was a nightmare. You can't go to a printer with a word
document. Quark, Photoshop and other expensive programs are needed. Along
with quirky, expensive "artists" who know how to use those powerful
Macintosh machines. Five months after the edit I was calling my "graphic
artist" on a daily basis. "Almost done" became a repeating theme - to the
point that I now have a custom license plate for my car (seriously) that
says "Almost"!

Seven months after I started editing and layout I finally had the book done
and a proof from the printers. Yahooooo!!!!!!!!!!!! It took me almost two
years and cost me way more money than I have to print 2,000 copies. Do you
have any idea how much space 2,000 copies of a book takes up? The wife will
tell you it is exactly enough space that I'll never be allowed to park my
car in the garage again. Or maybe even sleep in my own bed (she's starting
to soften - last night she brought my pillows downstairs instead of throwing
them).

Did I mention that if you write about fishing it becomes a foregone
conclusion that you won't be doing any? Between the time and expense you'll
be lucky if you can even glance at the fly rods calling you from the corner
of the den. Last year I was on the water 119 times. This year - under 20 so
far.

So what did I write about? I thought you'd never ask. My book really does
take a different look at a few idea - mainly fishing the well curve (see my
article on http://www.warmwaterflyfisher.com), understanding warm water prey
species and how they are different from cold water inhabitants, and how fly
sizes and patterns must change to reflect the changing availability and
abundance of warm water food items.

Of interest to this group will be key fly patterns that will imitate just
about any flowing warm water baitfish. These include immature carp
imitations, Foxee red Clousers and my own Mixed Media variation, crayfish
imitations, etc.. Also I think I broke a little new ground by acknowledging
and discussing fly fishing for catfish (yes, it can be done and it's a
hoot) - though that is only a minor part of the content.

Did I mention pictures? Not a lot of them, but they are all mine. 4 pages of
color images as a centerpiece and a nicely designed cover. Also a nice bw
image opening every chapter, along with a cool quote. I did spend a bit of
time on this, after all...

Anyway, if any of you has ever thought, "I think I'll write a book on fly
fishing" - stop and think again. Go to a bar. Drink heavily. Run your credit
card to the limit. Take up golf. When you are finally broke, hung over and
humbled, come back and examine your desires again.

The title of my book is "Fly Fishing Warm Water Rivers" ISBN 0-9765963-0-X.
You can see it he
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MESE%3AIT&rd=1

Hurry, the bar opens soon....

Joe C.

"Cornmuse" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
Hey Guys;

I'd like to share my story will all of you.

Very good! Perfectly true as well. More or less impossible to get anything
published without spending a lot of money and time. Makes one wonder how the
authors of all the "junk" books ever get on the market.

TL
MC

"Mike Connor" wrote in message
... Very good! Perfectly true as
well. More or less impossible to get anything published without spending a
lot of money and time. Makes one wonder how the
authors of all the "junk" books ever get on the market. TL
MC

Indeed it does! I've seen more mediocre books with fancy pictures of awful
salmon flies than I can count and I wonder who buys them, much less why a
publisher would pay to print it! My book is a first effort and I certainly
don't think its "the end all and be all" of fly fishing - that said I DO
think I had something original to say.

One of the problems I faced was the topic - most publishers "don't publish
regional books" (their line, not mine) - but they seem to make exceptions
for anything about trout, salmon, Oregon, California, Colorado or Montana.
I guess they don't think anyone fishes anywhere else?! Still, I understand
that they are running a business. Perhaps if I'm successful with this effort
the proverbial "door" will magically open. And if not, at least I tried.

Joe C.

. Makes one wonder how the authors of all the "junk" books ever get on the market.
TL MC

Indeed it does! I've seen more mediocre books with fancy pictures of awful
salmon flies than I can count and I wonder who buys them, much less why a
publisher would pay to print it!

That's not limited to fishing books. Before I retired, 11 years ago,
I saw a number of "academic" books that could only be called "junk
science."

One I recall, entitled _Media Economics_, published by Sage, was only
about 150 pages long but contained (I counted them) 73 errors of
economic analysis.

Another, about the economics of newspapers, had chapters on demand,
supply, and elasticity. The author didn't understand any of those
three fundamental economic concepts.

One reason is that to save money, publishers no longer employ editors
in the old-fashioned sense of the word. One day a kid barely out of
college popped into my office and announced he was "the social
science editor" for Prentice-Hall or McGraw-Hill or some-such formerly
respected publishing house. He was really a salesman.

vince