Released in the fall of 1997, Jim Schollmeyer's vest pocket guide to insects has established itself as a classic. It might better be described as a fly fishermen's streamside survival guide than a book.

The text is insightful and concise, but the book's greatest value lies in the sharp, clear images of insects and the flies that imitate them.

Mr. Schollmeyer, a professional photographer, uses his skills to provide vivid pictures of insects that you can compare to samples you collect on the water. Is that a Pale Evening Dun you've just plucked from a rock at the water's edge, or a Yellow Quill? And when that helpful angler across the riffle shouts out that he's taking them on Trico spinners, how the hell do you know what fly to tie on?

With the Hatch Guide For Western Streams, you can flip the book open, find the insect, and on the facing page, find three different flies to match the hatch. If you've got time, and your hands aren't shaking too much as you listen to the trout slurping down those Tricos, you can read the brief text that describes insect life cycles and explains fishing techniques.

The book has been sized to fit in a pocket, so you can take it fishing with you as a reference guide. Before you do that, however, you might want to pack it along to the fly shop, and go on a major pattern acquisition spree. This book doesn't capture all the fly patterns that are important in the Pacific Northwest, but it hits all the major ones. If you fill your fly books with the patterns Mr. Schollmeyer has selected, you'll be ready to match most the hatches you might encounter.

For fly tiers, there's a pattern guide at the back of the book. It's a wonder Mr. Schollmeyer packed so much into such a small format.

Flies of the Northwest. By the Inland Empire Fly Fishing Club. Frank Amato Publications, Inc. Current price not available.

First produced in the 1960's out of a collective effort by members of the Inland Empire Fly Fishing Club, one of the oldest fly fishing organizations in the Pacific Northwest, this book just keeps on going. And it's no wonder. Packed into its 132 pages are many of the most enduring, and endearing, flies ever developed in the Northwest. Most the patterns evolved in the region, but some were imported, for one simple reason: they work.

The book, which has good color pictures, gives tying instructions to imitate a broad sweep of flies, from tiny chironomids that you can hang motionless in interior rainbow lakes, to bulky Muddler Minnows that you can swim through estuaries for coastal cutthroat, or bump into the depths of a Montana trout stream, looking for a big brown.

There's a good selection of steelhead and salmon flies too.

In addition to the standard pattern information, which runs beside the pictures of the various flies, there are also historical notes and tying tips which provide invaluable information. Next to a picture of a Brown Ant fly, for example, you get the basic details of materials, hook sizes, etc. If that was all you got, you'd tie a few for your fly box and wait for a brown ant hatch. But the book makes it clear, in its notes section, that this pattern was actually designed to imitate the big, brown chironomids that hatch on inland Northwest lakes in the spring. "This fly has persisted as one of the few effective dry flies to use during the giant chironomid hatches," it states. "The fly is so effective as a chironomid dry fly that variations to match the size and color of other midges should be useful."

The book also gives additional tying tips, advising that the tail should be sparse, the body thin and that the fly "rides the surface better if the bottom of the hackle is trimmed flat."

That's typical of the notes, which provide an extra depth of knowledge not found in most pattern guides.

Flies of the Northwest is such a good because it's based on a wealth of local knowledge.

(Flies of the Northwest and the Hatch Guide For Western Streams can be found at most fly shops and in book stores that have good fly fishing sections. For more information go to the publisher's web site at: www.amatobooks.com

Or write: Frank Amato Publications, Inc. PO Box 82112, Portland, Oregon, USA 97282. Or phone: 503-653-8108)

Fishing In Western Canada. A Freshwater Guide. By David Carpenter. Greystone Books. Douglas & McIntyre Publishing Group. Softbound $19.95 (CDN).

This is one of those books you love and hate at the same time. You hate it because, when you flip to the section that deals with an area you know, you find David Carpenter has just tipped the world to fish some of your favorite lakes. For this you want to burn the book. But then you realize you just might need it, because if he's nailed your area then you know you can count on him to guide you to some of the best waters in places you don't know, but would like to visit.

Driving through Western Canada this summer? Then Mr. Carpenter's book could prove valuable as you plot your course.

In the first section of the book he runs through the species you can encounter, tipping you to the fact that fly fishermen can catch a lot more than just trout, steelhead and salmon on flies. Did you know that goldeneye feed heavily on surface insects, and that freshwater drum will readily take a wet fly?

"Most fish are taken on the bottom, but like pickerel, they will surface feed on a good mayfly hatch," he writes of the drum, which he says may soon be recognized as a game fish in Manitoba. Let's get this straight, these handsome bass-like fish, grow to 18 pounds, take wet and dry flies - and they're not yet classified as game fish? Sounds like it's time to plan a fly fishing trip to Manitoba, where they may not know what a good thing they've got.

Not only do they have fly fishing for drum, but you can also take lake whitefish and pickerel on flies. (We already knew about fly fishing for pike, bass and lake trout, but suddenly the world of prairie sloughs and sluggish rivers just got a whole lot more interesting.)

In the book's mid-section, the author concentrates on giving advice on where to fish. Nobody likes to see this kind of information getting out on their own area, but of course we all want advice and where to fish in strange territory.

Mr. Carpenter has obviously done his homework, and provide concise, valuable tips on where to fish.

With this book in your glove compartment (does anybody put gloves in there?) you could do great fishing tour of Western Canada, taking salmon on the Pacific Coast, bull trout in the Rockies, and an array of species in the prairies that have largely been thought of as bait and hardware fish.

One word of caution: Fishing In Western Canada contains a section on how to prepare and cook fish. We take from the illustrations that this is intended to be used for plentiful species like pickerel and perch - not trout. But still, it does seem a little shocking to find a section like this in a contemporary book. Note to publisher: When the book's next revised, drop the fish fillet section and add more information on fly fishing for drums.