John Gierach's first book in three years arrives in readers' hands May 16. Fly fishers can hardly wait, and there are plenty of non-angling adherents of the Gierach view of life waiting for the UPS truck to arrive.

This week on MidCurrent you can watch and listen to Gierach as he draws the connections between fly fishing writing and the sport itself. As far as we know this segment, from the "Why Fly Fishing" DVD, is the only time Gierach has ever appeared in film. "We who fly fish," Gierach says, "think it's deeply meaningful until we try to explain why it's meaningful, and then suddenly it's just fishing again."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For his upcoming new edition of Spey Flies and Dee Flies: Their History and Construction, Oregonian John Shewey traveled to northern Scotland in search of flies tied by the legendary ghillie Geordie Shaw. He found them, after years of searching, hanging on the wall of the Craigellachie Hotel.

John Shewey's Spey Flies and Dee Flies: Their History & Construction on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When the Wall Street Journal ran a story on Carl Hiassen's new book The Downhill Lie: A Hacker's Return to a Ruinous Sport, I couldn't help but once again notice the similarities that might compel a fly fisher to play golf, and vice-versa.

WSJ: Have you played golf since finishing your book?
Hiaasen: I actually played yesterday. I hadn't played in a month. I disgraced myself completely. A lot of the strategy in golf involves getting your excuses lined up. This time there were no alibis, it wasn't windy, there were no snakes on the course. I shot an abominable 97." We don't have many snakes on saltwater flats, but we do have rays. And more than one beaver has spoiled a perfect drift of the fly.

By the way, you won't see Hiaasen fishing "like a putz." He's recognized as one of the top bonefishers around. You can see his fly box on MidCurrent.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you hadn't heard yet, John Gierach's first book in three years -- Fool's Paradise -- is being published this month. Jeffrey Mayor recently landed an interview with him and got Gierach to talk about how his style has changed in the 20 years he's been writing best-sellers. "'The first couple of books were written by a kid. I'm in my 60s now, I hope I've learned something. Hopefully the style has matured. I have people still come up to me and tell me their favorite is "Trout Bum" (published in 1988). That was written more than 20 years ago by a kid I hardly remember. As I get older I take a longer view.'" In the Tacoma, Washington News Tribune.

By the way, this coming Wednesday MidCurrent will be publishing a video interview with Gierach that is part of the new DVD "Why Fly Fishing." To be among the first to see it, subscribe to the MidCurrent fly fishing newsletter.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Author John Gierach and guide, artist and illustrator Bob White will mark their 100th column together in Fly Rod & Reel's July/October issue. Their first collaboration was in July of 1988, when Bob illustrated John's article, "East Big Fish." After Lee Wulff's death in 1991, the editors at Rod & Reel asked John to take over the assignment of writing the magazine's closing column, and Bob was asked to illustrate it. Their first regular column together, "The Sporting Life," was published in March of 1992. The illustration for the 100th column is a painting of John fishing his home water, and is titled "Close To Home." The accompanying image has yet to be released and will be unveiled in the 100th issue.

Bob has produced a set of limited edition prints from the paintings that illustrate the 1st and 100th "Sporting Life" columns, and Fly Rod & Reel will be giving two of these sets away in a sweepstakes that is described on Fly Rod & Reel's website at www.flyrodreel.com. In addition to the prints, the grand-prize winner will receive a new Boron II-MX rod courtesy of the R. L. Winston Rod Co.

To check out more of Bob's fine artwork visit his Web site at www.whitefishstudio.com. You can also see his work represented on MidCurrent's Fly Fishing Artists page.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you are familiar with the life of poet and children's writer Ted Hughes, who was Britain's Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death in 1998 and who was married to Sylvia Plath, you might expect a quirky and highly personal take on fly fishing. And that is what you get, from the new Letters of Ted Hughes (Faber and Faber, 756 pages), edited by Christopher Reid. "His letters reveal a Waltonesque obsession with angling: 'Dry Fly Fishing is a psychologically determined activity -- making slight understatements at the surface in the hope of interesting the organic mysteries and terrors in the depth ...' But for him, it was a dangerous activity; it could put you off your work: '... the whole motive of writing finds perfect and satisfying expression in fishing. Fishing is a substitute for symbolic activity that simply short-circuits the need to write.'"

More about Hughes on Wikipedia.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Verlyn Klinkenborg's entertaining thoughts on specialized vocabulary in The New York Times are a reminder of how peculiar our response to words can be. I consider myself tolerant of those who don't "speak the language," and I love a good malapropism, but if someone asks for a "rope" (instead of a line) or a "map" (instead of a chart) on my boat, it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Then again, my seven-year-old's favorite trick when driving the skiff is to try to hit all of the "boobies" (crab pot buoys), a terminology saved from age three because he knows it will make me laugh and reach for the steering wheel. And I'll sigh deeply and loudly over any kind of pontification, given that it is usually filled with errors of fact and judgment. Truth is, every nomenclature can help define expertise, but set it loose in common conversation and it becomes pretentious bilgewater. It's OK for fly rod designers to argue "spine" versus "spline," but lord save me from a room full of rodbuilders frozen in disagreement over the same.

"I realize that I’ve spent most of my life happily sailing into fogbanks of specialized language. Some, like the vocabularies of philosophy and literary theory, never lost their slightly foggy quality, thanks to their inherent abstraction. But others, like the languages of fly-fishing and hog-raising and horse-riding, cleared up just as soon as I laid hands on the objects they named."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Led Leeson has written some of the most beautiful essays in fly fishing (witness The Habit of Rivers and Jerusalem Creek), but lately he has become quite adept at observance of the sport itself, and especially how we adapt to the accelerating pace of change. In this month's Gray's Sporting Journal, he creates a long and rich list of the good and the bad. "When we don’t view the past in sepia tints through a Vaseline-smeared lens, we are apt, as the Stones say, 'to paint it black.' But Dickens was right: Human experience is equivocal. The Dark Ages had their bright spots, and the good ol’ days weren’t really all that good. From the French Revolution to fly fishing, history happens in shades of gray."

Read a longer sample of Leeson's writing in "A Moveable Feast" on MidCurrent.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

John Holt reviews Taylor Streit's new book Man vs Fish: The Fly Fisherman’s Eternal Struggle for the California Literary Review. "I didn’t give Man vs Fish five stars because it’s written as well as say Trout Madness or Trout Magic by Robert Traver or anything by Roderick Haig Brown, though I suspect that as Streit progresses as a writer he will approach these two in delivery. The book received the top rating because of its honest, humble approach to something I care deeply about. A rare thing these days."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An unsuspecting angler might pick up Richard Brautigan's 1967 book Trout Fishing in America and guess wrongly that he was about to read a guide to the country's cold water fisheries. In fact, the book has almost nothing to do with trout fishing but provides a condemnation of a cultural turn away from nature.

Interestingly, Brautigan was also featured in the UYA production of "Tarpon," made in 1974, and coined the phrase "fishing on the ragged edge" in the movie: further evidence that some of the roots of counter-culture literature in the U.S. are closely entwined with fly fishing.

This from the Wikipedia entry on Brautigan: "To his critics, Brautigan was willfully naive. Lawrence Ferlinghetti said of him, 'As an editor I was always waiting for Richard to grow up as a writer. It seems to me he was essentially a naïf, and I don't think he cultivated that childishness, I think it came naturally. It was like he was much more in tune with the trout in America than with people.'"

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This little gem of a quote is hidden in a retrospective by popular Irish sports writer Con Houlihan in Ireland's Independent: "Local fame is like a name carved on a tree destined for the sawmill. Anglers, despite popular belief, are not liars. Such strange things happen on the water that if they told the truth, nobody would believe them. And so they tell lies in an attempt to capture the truth." Read the whole piece; there's some really fine writing here.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The recipes for flies and descriptions of baits includes anything and everything: eels, parrotfishes, needlefishes, segmented worms, sea urchins, you name it. And the text is loaded with valuable tips ready to be applied. You'll learn what makes a fly good for fish wary of stripping action, where and why a ChilliPepper fly is a good bet for bonefish, and what about a Gray Squirrel Bendback make it functional in sea grass white spots or areas with current." Jordan Kahn reviews the new saltwater fly patterns book by Aaron Adams, a Mote Marine scientist who is also the operations director of Bonefish & Tarpon Unlimited. In the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

Fly Fisherman's Guide to Saltwater Prey on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As further proof that even a backwards-looking Web has a place in current culture, this 1989 NYT review by Nelson Bryant of Tom Rosenbauer's Reading Trout Streams reminds us that half-life of good fishing writing is very long indeed. (Then again, in Bryant's second review, Poul Jorgensen's tip that ''the best half-hitch tool you can use is a ball point pen with the ink cartridge removed'' might leave us wandering the aisle of Staples for hours. But Poul Jorgensen's Book Of Fly Tying became an instant favorite in its own right.)

"Rosenbauer covers everything from brawling rivers to brooks, including beaver impoundments on the latter, and reminds one to pay attention to pocket water that at first glance seems uninviting. He notes the importance of observing bubble lines in small streams: ''Watch the bubbles. Watch the debris. The fish will be right under their cafeteria line. . . . If the bubbles are skewed toward the right side of the tail of the pool, don't bother with the left -- until you're satisfied that the trout on the right are either spooked or not eating.'''

Check out Rosenbauer's later writing on the subject in "Reading the Water" and "Rich and Poor Trout Streams" on MidCurrent.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On his "Reports from Dark Acres" blog, Bill Vaughn writes entertainingly about how the Great Daylight Fireball of 1972 -- which raced from Montana to Washington state on the morning of February 19 that year -- saved a giant brown trout from becoming his victim. "First, I’d been caught up in the drugs, high drama and copious sex of the antiwar movement. Then, maybe as punishment, the army drafted me. However, a couple days before I was supposed to report to Fort Lewis, Washington, for boot camp I was informed that my government didn’t want to use me for cannon fodder after all because Richard Nixon had decided to turn over the war to the Vietnamese."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bob Edwards interviewed author, fly fisher and cutting horse devotee Thomas McGuane on XMRadio on his January 31 show. Even if you don't have XMRadio, you can listen to a portion (and purchase the rest) of the podcast on ITunes (just go to "Podcasts" and search for McGuane), or you can buy it from Audible.com for $2.95. In the interview McGuane talks about the eastern literary establishment, writers who live in "flyover country," and how getting bitten by a rattlesnake feels like getting whacked with a stick.

You can also read samples of McGuane's writing on MidCurrent: "The Longest Silence" and "Foundationless Opinions" are examples of what Nick Lyons has said is some of the best fishing literature ever written.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We received a copy of Jay Nichols's collection of expert fly fishing tips in the mail last week and were impressed by the amount of ground this handy little book covers. 1001 Fly Fishing Tips: Expert Advice, Hints and Shortcuts from the World's Leading Fly Fishers (Headwater Books, January 2008, 209 pages) is exactly what it says it is: a compendium of top suggestions from many of the recognized masters of the sport. Gary Garth reviews the book in this morning's Louisville, Kentucky Courier-Journal: "'1001 Fly Fishing Tips' is loaded with practical information, most of which is baseline. The text is simple and easy to understand. The book is divided into four parts: Technique and Presentation; Equipment; Hatches and Seasons; and Travel Destinations and Species other than Trout. It's nicely illustrated with 200 line drawings."

1001 Fly-fishing Tips: Expert Advice, Hints, and Shortcuts from the World's Leading Fly-fishers on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

They're delightful, they're entertaining, and they contain an important message for kids: respect our resources. Kirk Werner's two new books arrived in the mail last week and we were simply amazed by the talent they display. No only are the books -- Olive, The Little Woolly Bugger, and Olive and the Big Stream (both around 40 pages and published by Swimming Kangaroo Books) -- beautifully illustrated and written, they show great imagination and real knack for storytelling.

MidCurrent's own crack team of children's book critics began reviewing the books last Thursday night. Their balanced opinion (one is a 7-year-old boy, the other a 5-year-old girl) is that the books are "the best." Of course we didn't let the reviewers get away with such a simple critique, and when pressed both mentioned the "great story" and repeated several examples of engaging plot twists. But perhaps the most telling praise of all was an eagerness to return to the task on subsequent evenings, and even a willingness to forgo Spongebob.

If you have or know children of reading age who like a good book, we highly recommend Mr. Werner's new titles. Not only the books great reads, their sales will result in a contribution to the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital via Hooked On a Cure.

You can purchase both books through the Olive Web site (where you can also find some pretty cool t-shirts).

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you hadn't noticed by now, we like fly fishing art. We also like good writing. This week's excerpt of a book by Ed Gray and Arthur Shilstone exemplifies the best of both. Gray, as you may know, was the founder of Gray's Sporting Journal. Shilstone has achieved worldwide fame as a watercolor artist, and his paintings grace many corporate and private collections.

See a sample of their work from a collaborative effort called Flashes in the River (Willow Creek Press, April 1996, 127 pages). In it Gray talks about Alaskan fly fishing, its awesome beauty and its incredible fish, and Shilstone shows what a great watercolorist sees in big rivers.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis author Howell Raines will write for the new upscale Conde Nast business magazine, reports CNNMoney.com.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you are in any familiar with Ernest Schwiebert's Nymphs II, published posthumously in 2007 as the continuation of his classic Nymphs, you know that it was an enormous undertaking, not just on the part of the author, but by the editors and publishers as well. It's hard not to be impressed by Schwiebert's erudition, but some reviewers, like this one, take serious exception to the author's delivery. "Schwiebert’s hyper-inflated ego is reflected in his foppish writing style. He is an inveterate name-dropper. This form of self-puffery does not boost his status because, like most egocentric name-droppers, he fails to distinguish between individuals possessing minor outdoor celebrity (e.g., former Winchester public relations executive Jim Rikhoff) and true angling expertise (e.g., famed British river-keeper Frank Sawyer)." James Phillips on FWDailyNews.com.

If you'd prefer to reach your own conclusions, you can see a large excerpt from Nymphs II on Google Books.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Drift Boats and River Dories:Their History, Design, Construction, and Use (Stackpole Books, July 2007, 304 pages) came out in July and has since gained quite a following among boat builders and fly fishers interested in the lore surrounding the evolution of wooden western drift boats. Author Rodger L. Fletcher, along with illustrator Samuel F. Manning, created an enduring testament to the value of handcrafted fishing vessels and got admiring praise from reviewers like James Babb and Ted Leeson. This morning Roy Gault writes extensively about the recent book in the Oregon Statesman-Journal. "Fletcher first determined the original lines of each boat, drew a pattern, then built the boats as models, scaled one inch to a foot. His intention never was to build every one of the 11 boats himself, full sized. But his book does contain every angle for every cut, every measurement, every ounce of information necessary to build each of the boats. 'I break out in a cold sweat over that, afraid something will be a sixteenth of an inch off,' he said."

Drift Boats and River Dories on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's almost nothing more enjoyable on a cold winter's day than paging through coffee-table fly fishing books, especially if they combine art and biography. We received Diane Inman's new The Fine Art of Angling (Di Les Books, 205 pages, December 2007) earlier this week and I took a couple of hours perusing its wide-format pages, taking in the perspective of ten notable fly fishing artists. This is a very nicely done book. While the publisher's choices for featured artists all share a kind of classic sobriety -- most of them claim Winslow Homer as an inspiration -- bringing them together like this makes for an interesting comparison. The lengthy biographies that accompany the reproductions of art by Thomas Aquinas Daly, Eldridge Hardie, Chet Reneson and others are well crafted and reveal a common spirit among these more traditional artists: great fishing art is about being humble in the midst of majesty, about the fly fisher disappearing into the landscape. In some of our favorite pieces here, the angler is almost unnoticeable.

Beyond the generalizations though, there is some terrific stuff here from the individual artists. Here's Reneson on his choice to be representational: "Good abstract art is more real than realism. You're taking the essence and taking all the gooey, dooey stuff out of it." And Daly: "One reassuring thread of consistency in our often schizoid lives is nature's adherence to its own quiet and eternal laws."

For a nice glimpse of the book, check out the designer's preview.

The Fine Art of Angling on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Described as a "dashboard guide" rather than a coffee-table book, a new publication from Brushy Mountain Publishing offers a detailed look at important fly fishing waters in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. The Western North Carolina Fly Guide's author is J.E.B. Hall, a fly fishing guide for Davidson River Outfitters. "The guide divides WNC and eastern Tennessee into seven regions, offering more than 70 quick, easily digestible stream entries that show the water, tell how to get there and offer tips for which flies to use during various times of the year. The book bills itself as the definitive WNC guide to fly-fishing for trout, bass and musky." Johnny Buck writes about the book in North Carolina's Citizen-Times.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some of the most evocative fly fishing books -- at least in our library -- combine fine and inventive writing with raw but eloquent photographs. One example is Thomas McGuane's and Charles Lindsay's Upstream. Two more would be Andrew Steketee's and Kirk Deeter's books about fly fishing guides. We excerpted their saltwater book in late summer. Now we're happy to be able to show you a chapter of their book about trout guides, Castwork, illustrated with photographs by Liz Steketee.

"Rusty Vorous" is one of many remarkably insightful profiles in the book, but we picked it because we've had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of Rusty's quotable observations and brilliant instruction. The words and images capture not just the man but the land and water that have shaped his unique personality.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Most anglers associate Vincent Marinaro with his seminal A Modern Dry-Fly Code, written in the 1950s about the behavior of insects and feeding trout and championing streamside observation for dry-fly fishers. But Thomas Whittle and Bill Harms also knew him as a great practitioner and teacher of bamboo rod building and have just released a book about their mentor entitled Split & Glued By Vincent C. Marinaro, echoing the inscription Marinaro placed on each of his rods. "The book is a precise examination of the technical expertise developed by one of Pennsylvania's most influential fly fishermen and authors, an exploration of his life and times and a journey through the lore of his home trout waters in the Cumberland Valley. Prepared in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Museum Association, which will receive a portion of the proceeds, the 300-page, full-color book includes 225 photos, 50 drawings, 11 original paintings and charts of all of Marinaro's rod tapers." Marcus Schneck on Penn-Live.com.

The book can be purchased directly from the the authors at www.stonycreekrods.com.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Listen to the author of the new book Backcast talk about moving 17 times as a child -- often skipping out on the rent, learning about the outdoors, and as an adult having to deal with divorce, an event he had promised himself he would never experience. If you've already read the book, the interview reveals a rather heart-warming epilogue: the author's son writes a letter from Peru telling his dad "you'll never lose me."

Also, Chuck Leddy reviews Ureneck's book on Boston.com.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Subtitled "The Fly Fisherman's Eternal Struggle," this new book by New Mexico guide Taylor Streit is really a large collection of stories -- most of them quite entertaining -- about this fly fishing veteran's many experiences fishing not just New Mexico and the Rio Grande, but the Bahamas, Patagonia and Mexico. There are even a couple of hunting stories here, rounding out a fairly large picture of how the author has spent his last forty years in the out of doors. As with his earlier book Instinctive Fly Fishing (see MidCurrent's review), you won't find a lot of lofty language or pretension here, but there are plenty of lyrical moments.

Man vs. Fish on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We just received a copy of Rickey Noel Mitchell's new book The Orvis Guide to Personal Fishing Craft (The Lyons Press, December 2007, 99 pages, softcover). The book covers float tubes, pontoon boats, canoes, and kayaks and offers instruction on fishing from each craft (of course), safety and accessories. Mitchell is a writer and kayak fly-fishing guide out of Fresno, California, and apparently has plenty of field experience to back up his advice. Here he talks about fighting an invisible leviathan in Monterey Bay: "Fortunately my bow was pointed in the right direction and I tie a decent Bimini knot when I build a fly line, because the creature on the end of my line yanked me out of my teaching circle almost capsizing a couple of kayakers as it did so. Pushing the fighting butt of the rod into my gut, my PFD gave me the perfect cushioning and acted as a fighting belt. The mysterious fish was towing my kayak so fast the stern threw up a wake."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Backcast plays out like the long and splendid arc of a fly line, unfurling on an Alaskan river trip that Lou Ureneck has arranged to re-connect with his son. As the trip progresses, Ureneck reflects back on his own life while adroitly capturing the sometimes hilarious and sometimes serious interactions between himself and his son. The result is a realistic and heartwarming story of a father and his son -- and a work of outdoor literature of the highest order. "

You can read an excerpt from Backcast on MidCurrent.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new book out from British publisher Constable & Robinson traces the history and mystique of giant salmon in pictures and words. Sounding like a great seasonal gift for those who like to both gawk and dream, the 400-page, five-pound Domesday Book of Giant Salmon is, according to review David Profumo, a "highly enjoyable volume." "Organised into several categories fly-caught fish, any-method monsters in excess of 60lb, even ones that got away there is a discursive account of the circumstances of each leviathan's capture, ranging from detailed (and sometimes contradictory) first-hand narratives to the sketchiest of historical anecdotes." On CountryLife.co.uk.

The Domesday Book of Giant Salmon on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rich Murphy's new 445-page opus on fly fishing for stripers has me wondering -- as did Dec Hogan's steelhead book last year -- where folks find the time and resources to put together such giant compendiums. Fly Fishing for Striped Bass (Wild River Press, October 2007, 445 pages) is divided in to nine long chapters that cover everything from fish biology to flies and tackle, but the emphasis is, as it should be, on technique and strategy. This is a large format book with a ton of photographs and illustrations. The pre-release reviewers -- Lefty Kreh and Rip Cunningham among them -- seem to think this is the best book yet written on the subject.

Fly Fishing for Striped Bass on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It has been said that a good writer can write about anything and make it interesting. When a good writer writes about something as close and intricate as the stream of influences running from father to son, though, we should expect more than just an entertaining story. Lou Ureneck delivers it in his new book Backcast (St. Martin's Press, September 2007, 304 pages, hardcover), which we excerpt this week on MidCurrent.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This caught our eye because of a recipe that originated in a frying pan made from an old Maytag washing machine lid, but it also shows what a bunch of folks who love the Yellowstone backcountry can do with fresh trout and assorted camp-style ingredients. "Recipes in the cookbook ($19.95, Riverbend Publishing) run the gamut, from Cross' simple yet elegant Chocolate Pecan Rum Pie, to Superintendent Suzanne Lewis' old-fashioned Brunswick Stew, to an energy-boosting, grilled peanut-butter and chocolate-chip sandwich recipe submitted by Old Faithful Inn bellhop Walter Voeller." Karen Ronnow in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.

Yellowstone National Park Cookbook on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not all knots are created equal, as anyone who has taught knot tying can attest. First, you have to consider the variability in both the performance and characteristics of materials. Then you have think of -- among other things -- the wire thickness of hook eyes, the diameter of connecting lines, the affect of connections on the way the fly drifts or is pulled, the balance between strength and complexity, the sensitivity of the fish to knot size, and ... well, you get the picture.

The thing that most novice knot tiers don't get is that how a knot is tied is the most important variable of all. The highest-strength knot tied by an unskilled angler is weaker than a "60% knot" tied expertly. That's why it's worth learning knots from the best source possible, and why improving on knot instruction itself is a worthwhile pursuit.

This week we review Lefty Kreh's new book Fishing Knots, which aims once again to help knot tiers stop pigtails before they happen.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What does this morning's news have to do with fly fishing? Well, for one, fly fishers like to write. Second, getting published is not what it used to be, and even less so than in 1984 when, to prove a point, the already-famous Doris Lessing wrote two novels under a pen name and was rejected by her long-time British publisher. So the next time you are feeling "frankly but faintly malicious" toward a reluctant publisher, remember that their rejection is not always the best comment on the quality of your work.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I finished Lou Ureneck's new Backcast: Fatherhood, Fly-fishing, and a River Journey Through the Heart of Alaska a few weeks ago, I couldn't help but take a hard look at my relationship with my son. That's the kind of effect Ureneck achieves with precise writing and intense introspection (ever note how rarely these two things coexist?). According to this review by David Mehegan of the Boston Globe, however, his intention in writing Backcast was simply to help himself get over a nasty divorce. To the book's credit, the author doesn't wallow in a winless study of the reasons why he and his wife split, but instead chooses his relationships with his own parents and the evolution of his love for his son as his focus. "The book relates the history of Ureneck's childhood, marriage, and divorce, but its narrative spine is the adventure on the river. Dropped off by float-plane at the source of the Kanektok, father and son inflate and load up a raft and start inexorably downstream through the dramatic landscape."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

At the end of last week three new fly fishing books landed in our office: a new book on knots by Lefty Kreh, John Barr's book on his flies and how to fish them, and Charles Meck's Fishing Tandem Flies (Headwater Books, September 10, 2007, 128 pages). Since they are all important books, we'll talk a little about each this week, starting with Meck's handy little manual on droppers, which qualifies as a must-read for any serious trout angler. Meck covers all the combinations: one dry and one wet, one dry and two wets, two dries, two wets, three wets, etc. and talks connections, casting and delivery for a variety of conditions. There is a surprising amount of info in these 128 pages, much of it based on Meck's considerable practical experience. In short, if you've been looking for an excuse to learn about fishing multi-fly rigs, this is a great place to start.

Fishing Tandem Flies on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Yale Anglers Journal, started by James Prosek and Joseph Furia, is a small publication with a long reach. Ten years after its founding, it is publishing a collection of its best essays entitled Tight Lines. "The journal is an undergraduate publication, with a tiny circulation of about 1,000, but it has big-time connections, and it has drawn essays from people like former President Jimmy Carter, former Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson, the Yale professor and poet John Hollander, and author Christopher Buckley." Steve Grant in the Hartford, Connecticut Courant.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"He almost never wrote about it but, for the last 20 years of his life, Ernest Hemingway made his home in the rugged Idaho mountain town of Ketchum in a 1950s-era house made of poured concrete and painted to make it look like wood." Leonard Doyle writes about the local controversies surrounding attempts to open the scene of Hemingway's death to the hoi polloi. In the U.K.'s The Independent.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

With the inspiration of Kerouac's frenetic On the Road and a classic excerpt from Hemingway's Big Two Hearted River, Rex Turner explores the ways a good book can heighten enjoyment of the outdoors. "He felt a reaction against deep wading with the water deepening up under his armpits, to hook big trout in places impossible to land them. In the swamp the banks were bare, the big cedars came together overhead, the sun did not come through, except in patches; in the fast deep water, in the half light, the fishing would be tragic." In Maine's Kennebec Journal.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"I learned a lot from fishing. A good fisherman looks for patterns. When there are changes, good fishing or bad, he seeks the explanatory variable: Is the water low, cold or cloudy? Is the sun bright? Are insects rising from the surface? Are green worms falling from the trees? Does the bait work best when stationary or retrieved? Fast retrieve or slow retrieve? Fishing gave me lessons in the value of observation, experience and practical memory. I was abstract and dreamy in the rest of my life, sometimes dangerously so, but as a fisherman I was an empiricist, grounded in fact." Lou Ureneck, author of the excellent new Backcast: Fatherhood, Fly-fishing, and a River Journey Through the Heart of Alaska (St. Martin's, September 2007, 304 pages), recounts a fishing childhood in The New York Times.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The head of Boston University's journalism department has authored a book that tells the story of regaining a son's trust while fly fishing in the wilds of Alaska. Out on September 18, Backcast: Fatherhood, Fly-fishing, and a River Journey Through the Heart of Alaska (St. Martin's, 304 pages, hardback) recounts Ureneck's "own fatherless childhood, the influence of his mother’s boyfriend who helped him learn to fish, and the realization that he himself had done the one thing he always promised himself he would not do: He ended his marriage in divorce."

Preorder Backcast on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When Bill Curtis began guiding in south Florida in the middle of the last century, there wasn't anyone around for him to follow, or to imitate, or to dislike. He made a lot of stuff up as he went, stuff that later became doctrine for flats guides. He got tired of standing on his engine, so he came up with the first poling platform. He introduced the Bimini Twist to south Florida. He probably did dozens of other things that he never got credit for, and as with so many pioneering saltwater guides he wore a take-me-as-I-am countenance with him wherever he went.

This week we're happy to publish an excerpt from Tideline, an easily overlooked but beautiful book that came out of Willow Creek Press in 2004. The first chapter is a profile of Bill, and it contains extraordinary photographs of Captain Curtis in his last years of guiding. The writing, by Andrew Steketee and Kirk Deeter, is awfully good too.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"As any fly-fisherman who hasn't had his head in a bucket the last 20 years knows full well, Barr is the most successful designer of commercially distributed flies in the world. His Copper John, and its variations, is the most widely distributed fly in the contract tyer market, among a couple dozen other creations listed in the catalog of Umpqua Feather Merchants, the nation's leading fly distributor." Charlie Meyers writes about John Barr's new book, Barr Flies (Stackpole Books, August 2007, 188 pages), in the Denver Post.

Barr Flies on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bartender-gearhead-fly-fishing guide Ryan Friel and writer Brian Schott live and ski in Whitefish, Montana, a once-unsullied logging town in the western part of the state. Apparently no one got the word out there that literary journals don't work, so they decided to start publishing the "Whitefish Review," a "decidedly lowbrow" collection of writing from an eclectic community. "Let's call up retired NFL quarterback and sometimes Whitefish resident Drew Bledsoe and talk about the art of football. Then let's sandwich the interview between solid bookends - powerhouse Tim Cahill up front, Missoula's own William Kitteredge out back." Michael Jamison in The Missoulian.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Simon Gawesworth began teaching casting on the River Torridge, in Devon, England, but he lives and works now in Idaho, where he designs fly lines for RIO Products. We just got a copy of his new edition of Spey Casting and are happy to see the addition of Skagit casting to the chapter list. If you cast two-handed rods and hadn't seen the first edition, you've been missing out on what we think is the best-written book on the subject, not to mention the best-illustrated. Spey Casting, Second Edition on Amazon.

Also, if you're a two-hand practitioner or thinking you might give it a try, listen to Gawesworth talk about the techniques he teaches in our podcast.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At least part of the inspiration for MidCurrent was a desire to see more good fishing writing reach the Web, and it's been satisfying to watch newer and better writing appear year after year. The latest is Gillraker, which was brought to our attention yesterday. Gillraker could be called a blog, but on the other hand it is obviously more concerned with fine writing than with entry-making. I spent about an hour there yesterday and read writing by author Andrew Steketee (Tidelines), novelist Robert Abel (Ghost Traps), author Greg Keeler, and William Comstock (a 19th century whaler). The Gillraker filter is drawing out some very good stuff so far, most of it thought-provoking, like Steketee's take on fly tying in "Tying Inappropriate Flies:"

"Appreciating images of Dan Fink’s fly-tying nihilism (rattlesnake anatomy, hunting rounds, political hyperbole, etc. appended to fish hooks), I’ve concluded the fly-tying universe has missed the point around imagination. Not some compromised blend of utility, biology, and inspiration, but tying for tying’s sake — flies that sound less like the Fray, and more like Wilco or The Cold War Kids when played … DanBob’s Diamondback, Worm Ball, the Greedy George."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's a fascinating story about the discovery of "organic pollution" created by the harvesting of watercress on the famous Bourne tributary of the River Test. Discovering that mustard oil released by watercress reduced biodiversity in part of the stream, the company cultivating the plant changed its process for filtering released water. "The Bourne Rivulet, a tributary of the River Test near Andover in Hampshire, is the idyllic spot which inspired Harry Plunket Greene to write Where the Bright Waters Meet. The Victorian opera singer and key figure in English music, was also a keen fisherman who caught three fat, wild brown trout in the crystal-clear waters of the little chalk stream on August 29 1904." Paul Eccleston in the U.K. Telegraph.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Charles R. Meck's supervisor at Penn State thought Meck was crazy when he retired in 1987 after only 25 years with the university. 'I quit the day I received my retirement health care benefits,' said Meck, who lives in Pennsylvania Furnace. 'My vice president asked me, "What are you going to do?" " Eric Smith profiles author Charles Meck, whose extraordinary knowledge of Pennsylvania hatches and trout techniques led to a second career in writing, for Pennyslvania's CentreDaily.com. Smith mentions Meck's new book, Fishing Tandem Flies: Tactics, Techniques, and Rigs to Catch More Trout, coming out in August.

Fishing Tandem Flies: Tactics, Techniques, and Rigs to Catch More Trout on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"I am a fly-fisher and a sucker for the feel-good philosophy of fishing books. When they're done well, they speak to a bigger world than the water and fish they pretend to examine. When they're written badly, I just pass and go fishing." Pete Warzel rates Jeff Hull's new Streams of Consciousness (Lyons Press, January 2007, 208 pages) "superb" in this review on RockyMountainNews.com.

Streams of Consciousness: Hip-Deep Dispatches from the River of Life on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Author Charles Meck has a new book -- co-authored with Dave Hall -- coming out in September: Fishing Tandem Flies (Headwaters Press). Meanwhile he is giving Deborah Weisberg the scoop on all of the prime hatches that are about to occur in central Pennsylvania. "'The Green Drake [hatch] starts on Yellow Creek, usually around May 24, then comes to the Little Juniata and Penn's Creek about four days later,' Meck said. 'The last good Green Drake hatch is on Big Fishing Creek around June 10.'"

Fishing Tandem Flies: Tactics, Techniques, and Rigs to Catch More Trout on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How to Catch the Biggest Trout of Your Life, by Landon Mayer (Wild River Press, February 2007, 188 pages) seems to have a few clues that Ed Dentry likes in it, including "walking the dog" and "creating 'the dotted line,' a mental image of how any current will affect the delivery of his flies to a big trout." In the Rocky Mountain News.

How to Catch the Biggest Trout of Your Life on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 4:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"There's a short, but practical, section on fly-fishing from a kayak, as well as advice on something that a lot of new fishing paddlers learn they should have given more thought to -- picking the right seat." Eric Sharp mentions a new book, Kayak Fishing: The Ultimate Guide (Heliconia Press, July 2007, 160 pages), in the Detroit Free Press.

Kayak Fishing: The Ultimate Guide on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The New York Times has happily devoted a regular column to hunting and fishing since before the Second World War. Originally called Wood, Field and Stream, the column has since morphed into something more apropos for the time -- Outdoors." Times editorial writer Steven Soutner has assembled his favorites of the column in a new book called Upriver and Downstream: The Best Fly-Fishing and Angling Adventures from the New York Times (Harmony, April 2007, 304 pages). Mike Gillespie of the CanWest news service.

Upriver and Downstream on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bob Scammell writes in Canada's Brooks Bulletin about the good old days when fly fishing suppliers weren't afraid to tout virtually every one of their products as "The Best" or "The Only." He mentions the House of Hardy, Herter's, and R&R Feather Merchants of Rough and Ready, Californian, then notes that one company -- a mail-order book business started by Gary LaFontaine, still delivers the goods. "All this nostalgia came buzzing out of a Pandora’s box of half a dozen books I had ordered when I found the real treasure tucked inside: the latest copy of one of the quirkiest and best of the 'anti-catalogs,' the 'Book Mailer,' from Helena, Montana."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

U.K. journalist Keith Elliott offers an entertaining profile of James Babb, who has been editor of Gray's Sporting Journal for ten years now, in The Independent. "An accomplished artist, he once made his wife a set of 52 'Get Out Of Sex Free' cards as a seasonal gift. 'She's nearly used 'em all up,' he says in the hometown Tennessee drawl he switches into effortlessly when he's probably joking."

You can read a sample of Babb's witticisms and anti-purist style on MidCurrent in an excerpt from his most recent book, Fly Fishin' Fool.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"While the nor'easter hovered over Maine earlier in the week, a copy of Trout Eyes by New Hampshire author William G. Tapply arrived at my home, a superb collection of 28 fishing essays. What a merry twist of fate to have an excellent read for such a foul week of weather, one of those books that ended far too soon." Ken Allen reviews William Tapply's most recent book on MaineToday.com.

You can read an excerpt from Trout Eyes on MidCurrent. Trout Eyes on Amazon.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We came across a wonderful line by contemporary Irish poet Michael Longley in Laurel Maury's review of his new Collected Poems. Longley's sonnets are rich in natural wonder, as evidenced in these lines from "The Eel-Trap:"

I lie awake and my mind goes out to the otter

That might be drowning in the eel-trap:

your breathing

Falters as I follow you to the other lake

Below sleep, the brown trout sipping at the stars.

In the Los Angeles Times.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The new book is an exhaustive, nearly day-by-day account of where to go, what conditions to expect and which flies to carry on the Au Sable system, which is really three rivers -- the main stream, the South Branch and the North Branch." In his glowing review of Gates's new study of the Au Sable, Eric Sharp also mentions Mayflies of Michigan Trout Streams by Justin. W. Leonard and Fannie A. Leonard, published in 1962, considered the definite Michigan mayfly guide. In the Detroit Free Press.