Customer Reviews

Surfcaster's Quest: Seeking Stripers, Blues, and Solitude at the Edge of the Surging Sea

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Roy Rowan's Surfcaster's Quest lives up to the effusive praise it's lacquered with. Though it's contents didn't quite stun me, after staying up all night to finish it, I was left with a smile on my face and sweet dreams ahead. Dreams of tackling the surf; battling the fierce fish with whom I compete.

While Rowan's early experiences occupy some of the indelible pages of this masterpiece, he also makes sure to touch upon human feelings, history, and literary reportage--the last of which looms large because so many other good writers enjoyed angling and successfully expatiated on it. However, he goes further than crummy writers like the envious, yet egotistic, William DOC Muller who concentrates mostly on his own bible of Surf Fishing while casting all others out as bogus nonsense. Rowan, rather, embraces the notion that Surf Fishing is something special to each individual who wades into the ocean hoping to catch the prize fish. He accepts and champions the fact that the beauty each man/woman sees in the religion may be unique, seperate.

All the while his thoughts jump from fishing itself to larger matters--philosophical meditation on nature or personal reflections. Throughout, he manages the difficult trick of simultaneously celebrating both fish and fisher, nature and humanity. Best of all is his lyrical prose, supported by dry wit and simple eloquence.

This book is a must read for all Surfcasting enthusiasts. In fact, I recommend this book to any and everyone who enjoys the sound of waves lapping against the shore.

Roy put into words what most Surf Fisherman feel. I have already recommended this book to two friends who now will try surf fishing. I even enlisted my wife to accompany me on a trip to Block Island. Thanks Roy for this wonderful look into a place that is free for the taking.

Roy Rowan's Surfcaster's Quest is a timeless book for all surfcasters. It has become my "bible" as I refer to it so often as I write a weekly column for a Montauk Tackle Shop, Paulie's Tackle Shop, in the local newspaper, the Montauk Pioneer. "Like the cowboys of the old west, the surfcasters are a breed a part." Their unique world
is beautifully detailed in this excellent book. Rowan's words are "worth a thousand pictures" for all that know "Language Matters!"

I'm a sailor, not a fisherman, but by the end of the first chapter I was hooked by this book. Small in size, but huge in meaning, the book connected me to the blackness of night, the beauty of dawn at sea and the kind of foothold I have in this vast natural world. Rowan does this with the reporter's voice. It's matter-of-fact, down to earth and not difficult to grasp. He tells the hows and whys of fishing. He shows us Block Island up close--offering us both its natural beauty and the range of islander stories. He knows his history. Even Ben Franklin plays a minor (but significant) role.

Good stuff. Great book! Thanks, Mr. Rowan, for sharing your passion and wisdom with us.

Roy Rowan's a Surfcaster's Quest is a poetic portrait of a sport (or is it a religion? asks Rowan) that fascinates and informs while running a gamut of emotions from awe of that fierce and gallant adversary, the striped bass, to the joys of this solitary pursuit that creates so much peace of mind for its practitioners. You feel the salt spray in your face and your powerlessness as you wade along with the author into a surging sea and, in my case, you can't put down this delightful book until you've reeled in the last page.

Dull ruminations on fishing off Block Island by a privileged yet simple man gone poetic.