The purists among dry-fly fishermen will not under any circumstances cast except over rising fish, and prefer to remain idle the entire day rather than attempt to persuade the wary inhabitants of the stream to rise at an artificial fly, unless they have previously seen a natural one taken in the same position.The volume begins by spelling out the various pieces of fishing and personal equipment the dry-fly angler should possess.

Such were Halford's recommendations that they were routinely referenced by the fly-fishing trade: The double taper dry-fly lines', dressed with pure linseed oil under an air pump, exactly in accordance with Mr. Halford's directions on pages 24 and 25 in "Dry-fly fishing in Theory and Practice," are now perfected, and are pronounced

The bulk of the remaining chapters deal with the entomology of the chalk stream, fly selection and trout behaviour.

[5] I think I was at one with most anglers of the day in feeling that the last word had been written on the art of chalk stream fishing....when, in 1886, Mr. Halford published an important work on “Floating Flies and How to Dress Them.” he had practically a virgin field before him.

It is also, in spite of the addition of effective nymphs to our armoury, the era of the dry fly.Theodore Gordon, the acknowledged "Father of American dry-fly fishing", wrote extensively about the influence Halford had on his views.