Howell Raines has gone fly fishing with presidents of the United States and legends of the sport, as well as relatives, childhood friends, and his two sons. Casting deep into the waters of his tumultuous and momentous life -- his storied career at the New York Times, his painful divorce, his seven-year feud with his father, his memorable friendship with fisherman/philosopher Richard C. Blalock -- Raines offers his now-classic meditation on the disciplined, beautiful, and unessential activity of fly fishing and the challenges and opportunities of middle age. A witty and profound celebration of life's transitions and the serene pleasures of the outdoors, Raines's memories and observations offer wisdom for the younger man, comfort for the older man, and rare insight for women into the often puzzling male psyche. Hear me, my brothers, Raines says. Anything is possible in the life of a man if he lives long enough. Even adulthood.
Wisconsin and Minnesota together boast more than 12,500 miles of designated trout waters in more than 3,000 streams. Thanks to conservation efforts by governmental and volunteer organizations, fishing is better than it has been in decades. In this completely updated and expanded second edition, the authors have added information on many new streams. Veteran anglers Humphrey and Shogren describe their native trout waters with an evocative sense of place that conveys not only the details but also the experience an angler can expect.
Features include: profiles of more than 120 productive trout rivers and streams; information on hatches, access points, and wading conditions; travel directions, map references, and information on nearby facilities; 55 detailed maps; hatch charts for the region's major hatches; advice on tackle, flies, and tactic; local hatch charts and fly patterns; information on tackle shops and guide services; and much more.
This book grew from the author's desire to consolidate the many teachings that he uses in his popular fly-fishing classes. It is a textbook that includes concise and selective commentary on tackle, casting, tactics, flies and fly tying, and other related topics. The word companion derives from "one with whom we share our bread." After more than fifty years of fly fishing, the author would like to sit at the streamside and share these observations with readers. Here is the knowledge and understanding that he wished he had when he began fly fishing.
While the handmade steel hooks, horsehair lines, and carefully crafted wooden loop-rods have long given way to nylon and fluorocarbon leaders, multipiece graphite rods, and synthetic lines, the fundamentals of the craft have remained basically the same. In The Fly-Fisher's Companion, the author carefully goes through all the basics, all within the context of modern fly-fishing situations.
This companion may serve as a foundation or a supplement for fly-fishing instruction. It may also be a reminder or reference for the more experienced angler. As a retired educator, the author recognizes that instructors present material in different ways. Instructors may wish to select only those topics that fit their syllabus while omitting others. Over the years, these instructions and commentary have produced a host of competent fly fishers. We all learn by image, word, and action. Since the sepia days of Walton and Cotton, fly fishing has been an enthralling sport. And, as this companion hopefully makes clear, there is more to fishing than fish. There is an infinite amount of pleasure in learning a skill and doing it well.
Fisherman only become bores when they are bragging about their big fish. But this collection of essays shows their other side. When fishermen talk about their losses, they show a much more interesting side, and here a collection of famous or important writers all contribute an essay which in many cases becomes more than an account of a lost fish which has haunted them all their lives " it sheds light on the nature of loss itself, and how the human spirit endures it.
Learn to fly fish from an expert and bring in the big catch
As a newcomer to fly-fishing, you might frighten and lose fish simply because you haven't learned streamcraft, the art of stalking fish in moving water. Fly Fishing in Rivers and Streams teaches you how to master this art. The author explains how to angle successfully in every situation and in any stream, from brook to river.
Anglers are simply superior because of their contemplative pastime, according to Izaak Walton. And few who fish would disagree. In fact, the habit of amplifying the sport is documented at least as long ago as 75 A.D., when Plutarch wrote that Mark Antony faked a catch to impress Cleopatra. From Bible verse to Grandpa's latest whopper, fishing has figured in our spiritual and cultural lore, to say nothing of our cuisine, as far back as we remember, and nowhere is this truer, perhaps, than in the great north woods.
A celebration of the sport in the land of 10,000 lakes and beyond, where the fish fry is a near-holy Friday ritual, the running of smelt heralds spring, and a village of ice-fishing huts springs up on every frozen lake, this irresistible book tells the full story from trivia to sacred tradition. Eric Dregni, who has entertained countless readers with enlightening tales of Midwest marvels, here shows his considerable skills as a raconteur and cultural historian of the fun and the facts of fishing in the Great Lakes region.
Fishing contests and taxidermy, lures and earthworms, fishing scenes on beer cans, and the peculiar genre of fishing photographs: no detail is too small, reflection too deep, or bridge too far to escape his eye and ready wit, from gear madness to true grit, angling heroics to solitary pleasures, small-town festivals to sport-fishing meccas. And he has the images to prove it. Lavishly illustrated with postcards, advertisements, historical prints, and tourist snapshots, this book is an always fascinating, occasionally hilarious, and often oddly informative compendium of fishing lore destined to reel in the uninitiated and to occupy the aficionado in those long, empty hours between seasons.
The first books the beginning naturalist needs. Simplified versions of the full-size guides, they make it easy to get started in the field.
To the uninitiated, ice fishing seems improbable, wacky, and dangerous. But every winter, more than 2 million hardy northerners go to their place on the lake: literally on the lake.
Striking story-telling photographs by Layne Kennedy and engaging essays by outdoor writer and fisherman Greg Breining capture the quirky world of ice fishing--its natural beauty and solitary subzero vigils, along with its oddball practices and practitioners.
Kennedy and Breining take readers to fun-filled if bizarre festivals that include "Guys on Ice" in Door County, Wisconsin, the Tip-Up Town USA festival on Michigan's Houghton Lake, and the supremely self-mocking International Eelpout Festival on Minnesota's Leech Lake, which honors a slimy, potbellied, finny critter. Photos offer peeks inside ice houses that range from a plastic-bag cocoon to an impossibly luxurious Adirondacks ice residence with front porch and wet bar. Travel to a frozen lake in the Boundary Waters, to ice cities that form and disband overnight, and to the Volga River near Moscow, shadowed by the KGB.
Perhaps most importantly, A Hard-Water World allows the reader to enjoy the beauty, wonder, and, yes, insanity of ice-fishing all year round and in the comfort of his or her own home.
