Posts from the “Lit” Category

Fly Fish Journal

Posted on October 31st, 2009

I wasn’t going to pay for it. I found the only copy in my local Barnes & Noble, barely visable in the “Sports” section of the news stand behind a misplaced rap magazine. I flipped open to an article called “Eden’s Tarpon” and couldn’t put the mag down after that. I read almost the whole thing just standing there. It has great photography, interesting writing, no top ten lists, no “look at me Ma, I’m fly fishing” articles, and even a solid Head reference. I was going to shelve it but then decided these guys need to get paid so they can keep doing it. $15. And thanks for the bluefish love.

BOOK REVIEW: The Alaska Chronicles

Posted on April 20th, 2009

A lot has already been said about this title, so I’ll just add this: The Alaska Chronicles is the best fly fishing book I’ve read in a long time. Miles Nolte’s efficiency of prose is top notch. He has a good story to tell and doesn’t let useless words, thoughts, exclamatory hyperbole, or cliche bog it down. The result is a book that’s hard to set aside, one of those reads that make chunks of time–like the morning train commute or the fly time between take-off and touchdown–disappear. If you don’t know the story, Nolte spent two-plus  seasons guiding at a remote lodge in Alaska, and documented his second on The Drake message board. His daily journal provided a gateway into the guiding life and…

BOOK REVIEW: The Big One

Posted on April 17th, 2009

Score one for participatory journalism. In 2007 David Kinney, a career newspaperman, dove headfirst into the collective insanity that is the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby. The result is The Big One, an exhaustively researched window into the people and culture that fuel the derby, and the mania that fuels them. It would be tempting to think this was an easy book to write; go fishing and then type it all out. That would be incorrect. Kinney deserves credit for gaining access to a group so paranoid and insular that getting any of them to talk and take him fishing is remarkable. (In fact, reading some passages, you’re left to wonder if the source is on the level or passing along blatant…

BOOKS: The Big One

Posted on March 24th, 2009

“Open up that good book let it revelate to you.” –The Dexateens Just got in a review copy of The Big One, a book by David Kinney about the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, which is kind of a big deal around here (meaning the general northeast saltwater “here”). Some would call it a religious experience, and I can’t wait to find out if this book captures that. Reading commences tonight with a train beer.

Back Country

Posted on March 2nd, 2009

The skilful use of the pole is an absolute necessity in work in the Everglades. The Seminole hardly knows the use of a paddle; even on salt water he poles or sails around the coast. In the Everglades the paddle is useless, and if you break a pole and have not a second one with you, you are in a very bad plight indeed… –Hugh Laussat Willoughby, Across The Everglades, 1898

GOOGLE BOOKS: Fishing In American Waters

Posted on January 15th, 2009

Via Google Books, now reading Fishing In American Waters by Genio C. Scott, published by Harper & Brothers, 1869. Some highlights: Fish evince no mercy for any living thing which inhabits the waters, and most of the angler’s fishes feed readily on their own broods. Another one: Salmonia: Or Days of Fly Fishing, by An Angler, published by J. Murray 1832 It is a large gaudy fly, and is fit for no part of this pool, except the extremely rough head of the torrent: there I dare say it will take in this state of the waters.

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