Amazon.com Review
"When you're fly-fishing for sharks," observes Richard Louv from an 18-foot aluminum boat 12 miles off the coast of San Diego doing just that, "the line between lunacy and sanity is pretty thin." The truth is, most anglers, whatever they're fishing for, live fairly close to that line, and it's that proximity that leads Louv on a provocative quest. "The waters we fish, and how we fish, reflect larger political, ethical, even spiritual issues," he writes. "How shall we reconnect to nature? How should we treat fellow creatures of other species? How do we hold fast to what is old, timeless, and slow?"
As he travels from the Pacific to the Atlantic and the Gulf Coast to the frozen lakes of Northern Michigan, Louv ponders the ways and whys of pretty much the whole teeming democracy of rods and reelers--fly-fishers, ice-fishers, big-game fishers, guides, tournament bassers, even poachers--and their impact on American culture and the environment. He heads out into streams, lakes, and oceans with them, attends expos with them, buys bait with them, and sits down in coffee shops with them to better understand who they are, what lures them, what they take from the waters, and what they give back. He meets a marvelous group of players, among them the sons of Ernest Hemingway and R.F.K.; fly-fishing's incomparable first lady, Joan Wulff; and the less well-pedigreed, too, like a Texas woman who poignantly describes how bass fishing saved her life after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and her church shunned her because she was a lesbian. He explores how fishing has traditionally tied together generations--including those of his own family--and even how finding a long-forgotten strain of trout in Southern California could halt future development in its tracks. Louv might easily have gotten skunked on such an ambitious fishing trip; instead, his journey reveals much about America and its love of angling. --Jeff Silverman
From Publishers Weekly
A contributing editor at Parents, Louv (Childhood's Future) records his travels- fishing and mingling with like-minded enthusiasts-in this brisk, if somewhat sprawling, survey of fishing across America. As he hops from proletarian New Mexico waters to hazardous ice fishing in northern Michigan, then down South to the Florida Keys, Louv delves into diverse fishing subcultures. There are luxury fishing lodges, slick live-action TV fishing shows and regional and national tournaments where big money is the lure. Other subcultures include an underworld of poachers and the growing fraternity of catch-and-release anglers. Women have formed their own league, too, challenging a male-dominated stronghold; as part of his journey Louv went to Texas to interview Sugar Ferris, founder of Bass'n Gal, the national women's tournament and bass-fishing association, which had 33,000 members before its demise in 1998. (Several corporate sponsors withdrew support after some of the organization's members acknowledged that they were lesbians.) Louv hangs out with urban anglers on New York City's East River, meets Hemingway's fly-fishing son in Montana and plumbs "deep fishing," or transcendental immersion in nature, in Vermont. This hymn to fishing--the sport and mystique--is decked out with photographs of the people he met, and their catches. While doubting readers--like the author's wife, a vegetarian who sides with the fish, or his teenage son, who reluctantly joins him on some outings--may find that Louv's attempt to fathom the sport's spiritual dimensions smells fishy and that his justification of the sport's morality (fish don't feel pain) is a cop-out, his eye-opening odyssey will be pure bliss to anglers. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
