Voelker's Pond: A Robert Traver Legacy (Michigan) [Hardcover]

Ed Wargin (Author, Photographer)

Book Description

Series: Michigan | Publication Date: May 2003

(Synopsis) John Voelker was a fly fishing icon - and to avid readers of 1950s best sellers and to classic film buffs, he was also known as Robert Traver the author of award-winning classics such as Trout Madness, Trout Magic and novel turned Academy Award winning movie, Anatomy of a Murder. John Voelker was also a Michigan Supreme Court justice. And either way he was a man who needed little introduction, fr he was the man who Charles Kuralt befriended and in the end called the closest thing to a great man [he] ever met.John Voelker had a fishing spot - a private retreat more or less - in the northern portion of Michigan's upper peninsula. Millions of people are familiar with this place in the woods through his words, but never before has a professional photographer captured with such stunning beauty, the one-room cabin nestled in the woods, the glacial pond where native brook trout remain elusive, the forest that surrounds it all, as well as the rods, the flies, and the small nuances that tell the story of an extraordinary man, and the legacy he leaves behind.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Huron River Press; First Edition edition (May 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932399003
• ISBN-13: 978-1932399004
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 9.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #186,031 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Breathtaking Photography!, June 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Voelker's Pond: A Robert Traver Legacy (Michigan) (Hardcover)

This book is an amazing delight for those who love fly fishing, as well as those who simply love Michigan, great photography, and beautiful hidden places of nature. I learned things I didn't know about John Voelker, who wrote under the pen name Robert Traver, and through the stunning images, I felt as if I were right there at his beloved pond, fishing with him, something many of us flyfisherman have dreamt about for years. This books gives that dream new meaning. Thank you Mr. Wargin and Mr. McCullough, for capturing this place so beautifully!!!!!!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Voelker would have liked this book, November 10, 2003

By 

"mbuda" (Mason, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Voelker's Pond: A Robert Traver Legacy (Michigan) (Hardcover)

Trout fishing is not for the impatient. Whether you come to trout fishing, especially fly-fishing, with the requisite patience, or it teaches it to you, I'm not certain. But I am certain that the legendary fly-fishermen have it. I am also certain that patience doesn't guarantee success. Or else I would do better.

John Voelker must have been a patient man. He knew what it took to catch a brook trout with a fly and he was good at it. He also knew how to write about it, which he did with great skill and precision, as if casting a fly to a wary trout. In fact, he was famous for his writing, at least in fly-fishing circles, where he has achieved the status of a legend.

Voelker is probably better known to the general population by his pen name, Robert Traver, under which he wrote the 1950s best seller, Anatomy of A Murder, which in turn was made into an award-winning movie of the same name. (But for a little movie called Ben Hur in 1959, Anatomy of A Murder might have been one of the biggest Academy Award-winning movies of all time.)
He also was well known in Michigan as a Supreme Court Justice, but he gave it all up in his prime to fish and to write. "To paraphrase a deceased patriot," he said, "I regret that I have but one life to give to my fly-fishing."

Voelker, a simple man with a quick wit and a love for nature and a good drink, would have turned 100 at the end of June. He died in 1991. A new book by photographer Ed Wargin and writer James McCullough, both near-Petoskey, Michigan, residents, celebrates his life by exploring his secret fishing hole somewhere in the middle of michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Wargin's photos are crisp and clean, simple and celebrative at the same time. They seem to catch Voelker's demeanor as they show his favorite places and things, his secret pond, his fly rods, flies, and reels, his small, rustic cabin. A display of Wargin's photos at the Peter White Public Library in Marquette in June was impressive, but had nothing on the book, which seems better with each reading.

Part of the book's charm is the writing of McCullough, who now teaches English and education at North Central Michigan College in Petoskey. As a 15-year-old, McCullough had the chance to meet and fish with Voelker at his secret camp, and he uses that event, and his own fly-fishing experience, to infuse his narrative with an understanding of Voelker's take on life and living. This is fine reading and will make any non-fishing day a better one.

Voelker probably wouldn't have been too keen about all the hoopla surrounding his birthday. I suspect he rather would have been fishing. But he would have been patient. And he would have liked this book. And anyone who has found peace on a stream will like it, too.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fly Fisherman's Walden - A Tribute to Traver, June 14, 2003

By 

Garrett M. Stokes "Garrett" (Seattle) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Voelker's Pond: A Robert Traver Legacy (Michigan) (Hardcover)

While focusing on the legacy of Robert Traver, a famous Michigan statesman, novelist, and fisherman, this book manages to also capture the soul and unique philosophies of fly fishermen everywhere. Wonderfully photographed throughout the book, James McCullough, through his series of essays, recounts his memories as a young man meeting the famous Traver on Voelker's Pond and his experiences years later returning to the pond after Traver passed on. Simply a peaceful and entertaining book to read through, with glimpses of the secret solitude of the fly fisherman's world with lessons of life that extend beyond the rod and pond.