Traver On Fishing [Hardcover]

Robert Traver (Author), Nick Lyons (Editor)

Book Description

Series: On | Publication Date: August 1, 2001

No one wrote with more warm, downhome affection for flyfishing than the late Robert Traver. He especially loved fishing for his beloved and bejeweled native brook trout on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, mostly on what he called "Frenchman's Pond," near Ishpeming.
The tales he told made two memorable books, Trout Madness and Trout Magic; text for a brilliant story in photographs (Anatomy of a Fisherman); and numerous essays and stories in a wide variety of magazines. His prose gives us, as Arnold Gingrich has said, "that wonderful, relaxed, lazy, unhurried and unflustered, comfortable 'old shoe' feeling, page after page."
Traver on Fishing collects the best that the old judge wrote about his favorite sport - tall tales, strange happenings and true lore, including his famous 'Testament of a Fisherman'. This book is a marvelous catch of wit, wisdom, and anecdote sure to delight everyone who enjoys a master storyteller, who just happens to write here about his wonderful world of trout fishing.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nick Lyons presents Traver on Fishing, a treasury of essays and yarns by the author known as Robert Traver (pen name of former Michigan DA and judge John Voelker, who, following the success of Anatomy of a Murder, was able to retire from his legal work to fish full-time). Part personal experience and part fictional musings, Traver's essays (many of them selected from his three previous fishing books: Trout Madness, Anatomy of a Fisherman and Trout Magic) are lyrical, insightful and as enticing as the trout he gamely pursues, most especially at his favorite spot, Frenchman's Pond, with a tin cup of bourbon and a stogie.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Traver is required reading for every fly angler. Although he wrote almost entirely about his home waters in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, his words are still widely read with near reverence. Also famous for his court drama, Anatomy of a Murder (1958), Traver (the pseudonym for retired judge John D. Voelker) was a fine essayist and storyteller whose words remain fresh and funny. Nick Lyons provides a short introduction to this collection and then adds Traver stories from Trout Madness and Trout Magic (both available from Lyons Press) and the long out-of-print Anatomy of a Fisherman. Also included are Traver articles from several magazines and two profiles of the fisherman. Every library should have a copy of one of the author's books, and this one provides an excellent introduction and selection of works. Highly recommended. Jeff Grossman, Milwaukee Area Technical Coll. Lib., Oak Creek
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 348 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1st edition (August 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585742961
• ISBN-13: 978-1585742967
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,326,425 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Careful, You Might Get Hooked., February 28, 2002

By 

Timothy J. Mckeever (Spring Grove, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Traver On Fishing (Hardcover)

Just enough taste of Traver's life and philosophy to make you want more. You get a picture of a self-effacing man who downplays his professional achievements as well as his fly-fishing mastery. Although he frequently laments that he wasted his life fishing in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, you discover he was a successful district attorney, defense attorney, and state supreme court justice as well as a best-selling fiction author (Anatomy of a Murder). While he downplays his abilities as a fisherman, you learn he gave public flycasting demonstrations that brought the audience to their feet.

Makes you yearn to be one of the boys who gather at Frenchman's pond for a warm summer day of brown trout on dry flies with long, thin leaders, followed by a night of cribbage and whisky sours from a tin cup.

Traver will teach you as much about life as about fishing, and make you appreciate both more.

The technical info on fly-fishing gear was current when Ike was in the White House; but this isn't a how-to fish book, it is a why-to fish book; and I'm glad I discovered it and Robert Traver.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Robert Traver revisited, September 7, 2001

By 

Robert W. Bess (Harrison, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Traver On Fishing (Hardcover)

If you are a Robert Traver fan or fly fisher, you will surely enjoy this book. While it recounts several of the stories you
may have read in Trout Magic or Trout Madness, it also offers some of the articles Traver wrote for magazines. In additon,there are a couple of articles which present an interesting background on a truly remarkable man.

It does recall the best of Traver on fishing and a wonderful
additon to a fisherman's library.

2.0 out of 5 stars Great stories - TERRIABLE Narrative, April 20, 2011

By 

Charles T. Kaminski - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Traver on Fishing: about Fishing for Trout (Audio CD)

I've read Traver since I was a pre-teen. Having grown up in Northern Michigan his stories were close to home and familiar in context. The mannersims of his characters are true to life in describing the wide range of personalities one would encounter fishing and traveling throughout Northern Lower Michigan and the the Upper Penninsula. In this day and age we have John Gierach, but before Gierach there was Traver! The consumate story teller who can have your mind standing on the shore of the Escanaba River at dusk waiting for the Hexes to start hatching as the smell of a ciger fills the air in an attempt to fend off the black flies. I almost guarantee you'll laugh outloud at least once when reading Trout Madness or Trout Magic.

Heres the rough part; The narrative/reading of these great stories is TERRIABLE! It's so bad that I really had trouble listening to them...as matter of fact I only was able to tolerate 2 of disk before I gave up. The reader does his best to bring the stories to life in a one sided medium but alas I find that he fails. The tone of his voice combined with a rate of reading is what could best be described as a drone. He tries to spice things up with changes in vocalization to relfect different characaters but they make it worse and really overwhelm some truely great stories.

My recommendation: by Traver's books, (Trout Madness, Trout Magic etc..) and then sit back and read them for yourself on a day when the weather keeps you off the river.