Dances With Trout

This was a fun, lighthearted read. It's a bunch of stories about fly-fishing. There's also chapters about hunting grouse, snowshoe hares, deer and a few other things but the majority of it is fish. His stories range all over different aspects of fishing, but it's mostly about fly-fishing in rivers he knows well at home, or travelling to different places with friends. He goes to Texas after Guadalupe bass, Alaska and Scotland for different kinds of salmon, West Yellowstone to fish on a bunch of rivers famed among fly-fishermen. He even goes fishing through holes in the ice in winter (that description was particularly intriguing), and casting at night. Mostly it's trout, though. In the daytime. There's some stuff about tying your own show more flies, and local fishing competitions, and a few amusing bits about how much he hates doing book tours, but all in all it's stories of him and his friends and other fishermen they run into and the experiences they have. I really enjoyed it. Gierach really knows how to tell a story well. He's got wry humor and friendly wisdom and keeps enough details of the craft in there to interest me, but doesn't get so technical I'm lost. I liked this book. Enough that if I come across more by this author, I'm very likely to read it.

from the Dogear Diary show less

"With the wry humor and wit that have become his trademark, John Gierach writes about his travels in search of good fishing and even better fish stories. In this new collection of essays on fishing -- and hunting -- Gierach discusses fishing for trout in Alaska, for salmon in Scotland and for almost anything in Texas. He offers his perceptive observations on the subject of ice-fishing, getting lost, fishing at night, tournaments and the fine art of tying flies. Gierach also shares his hunting technique, which involves reading a good book and looking up occasionally to see if any deer have wandered by.

"Always entertaining, often irreverent and illuminating, Gierach invites readers into his enviable way of life, and effortlessly sweeps show more them along."

Couldn't have said it better myself. show less