Tying Flies with CDC

CDC (cul-de-canard) feathers have extraordinary water-resistant properties. They grow near the preen glands of ducks and their lightness and buoyancy makes them invaluable feathers for tying dry flies, emergers and nymphs. The world's most innovative flytyers have discovered new ways of using these versatile CDC feathers. This book demonstrates their very latest CDC tying techniques and fly patterns. The patterns they have invented are often ingeniously simple, requiring easy tying steps and very few additional materials. Today many anglers choose to fish exclusively with CDC flies. Tying Flies with CDC is the definitive guide to this unique feather. It draws on the international ideas of celebrated flytyers: Dutch experts Piet Weeda, Hans van Klinken and Theo Bakelaar; Marc Petitjean of Switzerland and Marjan Fratnik of Slovenia; Elie Beerten of Belgium, Nicolas Ragonneau of France, Paolo Jaia of Italy, René Harrop of America, Tetsumi Himeno of Japan, and many others. This is an inspirational guidebook for the modern flytyer.

Leon Links, who lives in Amsterdam, is a fishing journalist and school teacher. He was first introduced to the flytying material CDC by fellow Dutch author and angler Kees Ketting, in the early 1980s. Since then he has fished with CDC flies on the difficult rivers of the Belgian Ardennes with remarkable success and has become an enthusiastic convert to the miraculous qualities of this special feather. An accomplished flytyer himself, Links is well known in European flytying circles, and his research for his book Tying Flies with CDC, took him to many parts of Europe, interviewing fellow experts, tying CDC flies and fishing with them.