Book Description

In his Preface to "Whitefish Can't Jump", Don Thomas writes: "A space alien arriving on the Big Hole during the middle of the salmon-fly hatch might conclude that the same sport an earlier writer had trouble distinguishing from religion is really about entomology, fashionable outdoor wear, and power, all of which is wrong. Above all else, fly-fishing is about fish and the places they are found." Here, then, are nineteen fly-fishing stories refreshingly devoid of Latin, pink shirts, and angling glitterati - stories where fish and the places they are found unabashedly occupy center stage. On the flats of Christmas Island, the fusion of Fin-Nor and bonefish becomes only the second lifetime experience to live up to its advance billing. On a river in southwestern Alaska, boating a huge rainbow where no huge rainbow should be becomes more important than avoiding a midstream collision with a nine-foot grizzly. A Montreal gas-station attendant's tip leads to a far-northern pond and a harrowing encounter with The Ultimate Northern Pike. The quixotic quest for a permit on a fly in Belize is marred only slightly by a dissolving marriage and a Blue Crab Special in a philosophical guide's ear. In Siberia, Dolly Varden, vodka, and the novelty of Catch-and Release combine to thaw the cold war. And, in the Yellowstone River, a new season begins with Rocky Mountain Whitefish and the reminder of just how arbitrary the distinction between gamefish and just-plain-fish can be. And why it ultimately doesn't matter. From each story we learn a little about fishing, a lot about fish, and a thing or two about life - or at least the kind of life where time spent on the water with a fly rod in hand is infinitely more important than time spent anywhere else.