Read these books:
George Black
Casting a Spell
Eric Blehm
The Last Season
Daniel James Brown
The Indifferent Stars Above
Rinker Buck
The Oregon Trail
Michael Burke
The Same River Twice
Russell Chatham
Silent Seasons
Dark Waters
The Angler’s Coast
David James Duncan
The River Why
John Gierach
No Shortage of Good Days
Another Lousy Day in Paradise
Fool’s Paradise
Still Life with Brook Trout
At the Grave of the Unknown Fisherman
Death Taxes and Leaky Waders
Standing in the Water Waving a Stick
Dances with Trout
Where the Trout are as Long as your Leg
Even Brook Trout get the Blues
Sex Death and Fly-Fishing
The View from Rat Lake
Fly Fishing Small Streams
Trout Bum
S.C. Gwynne
Empire of the Summer Moon
Roderick Haig-Brown
Fisherman’s Summer
Fisherman’s Fall
Fisherman’s Winter
Fisherman’s Spring
A River Never Sleeps
Bill Heavey
It’s Only Slow Food Until You Try to Eat it
If You Didn’t Bring Jerky, What Did I Just Eat?
Nick Jans
The Last Light Breaking: Living Among Alaska’s Inupiat Eskimos
A Place Beyond: Finding Home in Arctic Alaska
The Grizzly Maze
Hugo Kugiya
58 Degrees North: The Mysterious Sinking of the Arctic Rose
Mark Kurlansky
Cod
Salmon
Todd Lewan
The Last Run: A true story of rescue and redemption on the Alaska seas
Nick Lyons
My Secret Life Fishing
Norman Maclean
A River Runs Through it
Thomas McGuane
The Longest Silence: A Life in Fishing
Nathaniel Philbrick
In the Hurricane’s Eye
Valiant Ambition
Steven Rinella
American Buffalo
Peter Stark
Astoria
Robert Traver
Trout Madness
Henry Winkler
I’ve Never Met an Idiot on the River
Jeff, Love your site and your attitude. Hope to make it up to your neck of the woods some day!
I wanted to recommend an author by the name of Doug Rose who was a long time resident of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. He was a fishing guide, writer, avid water fowler and a conservationist.
Now, I am not an extremely well read person, but I’m working on it, and even with acknowledging my lack of expertise I think I can recommend Doug’s writings with definite confidence. Both his books on “Fly Fishing the Olympic Peninsula” and “Steelhead Fly Fishing the Olympic Peninsula” are great reads.
He has written for the “Drake” before so you may already know of him. I just think his approach to writing, with it’s historical and sense of place, is just a bit different from the norm and has really effected me.
Anyways, sorry about the long winded dissertation, but I hope you have or will take a look at Doug’s work. Unfortunately he passed way too early about 2 years ago from cancer and I never got to fish or talk with him.
Take Care,
Mike K.