Big: The 50 Greatest World Record Catches [Hardcover]

Mike Rivkin (Author), Flick Ford (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 3, 2008

The first illustrated gift book about the top 50 world record game fish catches, written by the historian for the International Game Fish Association.

The universal human interest in world records is nowhere more evident than in the world of sports. Every fisherman, from the seasoned professional to the most casual weekend angler, dreams of catching "the big one" and Big: The 50 Greatest World Record Catches delivers.

Artist Flick Ford and International Game Fish Association (IGFA) historian Mike Rivkin have combined talents to present the stories of the fifty most incredible record fish catches from around the world. The catches, selected for their sheer size, popularity, beauty, and exciting story, are presented in an oversize format, where the meticulously painted fish span double-page spreads. Amazing stories range from Dr. John Cook's legendary 1916 brook trout to fifteen-year-old Sara Hayward of Texas, whose wahoo catch was an astonishing thirty pounds bigger than the previous record-holder.

World record catches are compelling, often for the normalcy of the setting—a day like any other, a fisherman on the last cast. This book salutes the sportsmanship of fishermen, the history of angling, and the fine art that keeps it alive.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Flick Ford fell in love with fishing at age five. His father, an accomplished fly-fisherman and talented commercial artist/copywriter, instilled in him a deep respect for nature and nurtured his early creativity.

Born in 1954 in Atlanta, Flick was raised in Westchester County, New York. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Flick fished the Adirondacks, New England, Long Island Sound, Chesapeake Bay, Virginia and the woodland lakes of Quebec, while pursuing two other loves: music (as lead singer in a garage rock band) and art. He took formal watercolor classes in the 1960s; figure drawing and graphic design classes from 1973 to 1976 and then studied art at Evergreen State College in Washington State.

Flick moved to New York City in 1978 and dove into the audio/visual scene including indie film, video, underground publishing, cartooning, illustration as well as reconnecting with music. He performed in the East Village with several bands, and wrote and sang lead in The Crazy Pages for almost twenty years.

Ford left New York in 1993, heading for the Hudson Highlands where he quickly became obsessed with fishing the NYC watershed. As he branched out to many of the brook trout places where he had previously fished in parts of the Adirondacks and Vermont, the effects of over twenty years of pollution, over-development and acid rain became painfully apparent.

“ I felt I should start to keep a record of the fish I caught and decided to do it in watercolor paintings. I just want to catch and paint these fish, and show how they appear to me in all their iridescent beauty.”

Today Ford makes his home in Putnam County, New York. He fishes more than 100 days a year and ties his own flies. He selects early every fish he paints for its relative size and beauty. After landing a fish, he quickly gets a digital photo before the colors fade, carefully measures it in all dimensions, sketches details, counts scales, fin rays and finally traces it to get its actual outline. He has developed a technique of successive washes utilizing masking friskets and painstakingly detailed dry brush that make these fish truly come to life on paper.

Mike Rivkin is past president of the venerable Tuna Club of Santa Catalina Island, and has served as an International Game Fish Association International Representative. He is the author of Big-Game Fishing Headquarters and Angling and War. He lives in La Jolla, California.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: The Greenwich Workshop Press (November 3, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0867130997
• ISBN-13: 978-0867130997
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 14.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #954,325 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mike Rivkin is a veteran offshore angler and past president of the venerable Tuna Club of Santa Catalina Island. He is also a retired catalogue publisher and has written extensively on the history of angling, including five widely acclaimed books. On the water, Mike has caught every type of marlin that swims, most notably a 1,226 lb black marlin taken off Australia in 1984. He splits his time between La Jolla and Catalina Island, California and continues to fish the Pacific waters nearby.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Big and Beautiful, October 19, 2009

By 

Bonnie Neely - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Big: The 50 Greatest World Record Catches (Hardcover)

BIG: The 50 Greatest World Record Catches with the magnificent art of Flick Ford and the well researched text of Mike Rivkin just came out October 2009. The 14" by 11" book is an intriguing collection of art and stories and factual information that even those not into fishing will find worth owning. A great deal of research went into documenting the 50 world record catches along with finding archival photographs to go with each of the record catches. The book could stand alone as an art book on the basis of the art of Flick Ford in the detailed portraits of the 50 species of fish dealt with in this book. Flick's first book FISH: 77 Great Fish of North America, published in 2006, was widely acclaimed, winning the bronze Independent Publisher Book Award for the best coffee table book. As the reader of BIG: The 50 Greatest World Record Catches, I first was fascinated by the pictures of each of the different species of world record catches depicted in the colorful, detailed art of Ford, but as I began to read about the individual record catches, I was drawn into a wonderful world of stories and yarns that allowed me to vicariously experience the adventure of going after and attaining a record catch. The archival photos also brought a reality to the record catches. The book is certainly a wonderful coffee table collectable, but whoever opens the pages will definitely give this book more than a cursory look. I marveled at the time and effort that had to have gone into the making of the book. From the story of Alfred C. Glassell, Jr.'s catch of the record 1,560 pound monster black marlin off the coast of Peru to the story of George Perry landing the record large mouthed bass of 22 pounds 4 ounces, the book takes the reader beyond just the documented facts of each record catch. The book is a terrific conversation piece that will not only illicit a great deal of comment but also become a reference volume that artfully answers a lot of questions about the quests for the biggest catches in the world

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, February 9, 2011

By 

LoLo - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Big: The 50 Greatest World Record Catches (Hardcover)

I bought this book for my boss who is an avid fisherman. I opened it first because I was very curious about it. It is a really cool book. The way it is set up it has info on the first set of pages and then a huge Flick Ford picture on the other set. It is both a picture book and a reading book. My husband after seeing this book has requested one for himself.