Nick Lyons's first fishing book, The Seasonable Angler, is the story of a fisherman's year, from the projects and fantasies of an angler's winter through the thrill of a June evening's rise on the Beaverkill, and on to the pleasures and melancholia of autumn trout fishing.
In a book of spirited contrasts, Nick Lyons recounts hilarious misadventures on opening day and on family trips, as well as quiet moments when the fisherman becomes contemplative and close to nature. Lyons captures the excitement of catching a first trout-and the sadness of having killed, at times, too many fish. There is an increasing respect for the natural world, for conservation, for the spirit of the sport.
Throughout The Seasonable Angler, Lyons evokes the humor and lore of a man who has loved fishing deeply since early childhood. His book is not only for avid fishermen but for everyone who appreciates fine writing about nature and who wants to understand what animates that strong clan of people who fish.
"Fly-fishing isn't a spectator sport, but if Nick Lyons fishes as skillfully as he writes about it, I'd pay to watch him. He's that happy and compulsive combination of angler-poet-romantic, and his book is a joy."-Ed Zern
"A warm, nostalgic and yet enormously canny and rewarding book about those twin mysteries, fishing and fishermen."-Robert Traver
"There's one way to tell a Nick Lyons fan: just hand one of us a copy of Fly Fisherman magazine. It doesn't matter how huge the trout on the cover is, or what experts are holding forth in the feature articles, we'll turn to the back page and read Nick's column, 'The Seasonable Angler,' first. Over the past fifteen years it's become a sort of ritual-first the poetry of the sport, then the technique."-John Gierach
Nick Lyons was for twenty-six years an English professor at Hunter College and is now a book publisher. He has published more than four hundred articles and eighteen books, most of them on fishing.
