Wetherell, Engels, Proper, Gierach, Camuto, Palmer, Behnke, and Lyons celebrate the wild brook, brown, rainbow, and cutthroat trout.

Wetherell, Engels, Proper, Gierach, Camuto, Palmer, Behnke, and Lyons celebrate the wild brook, brown, rainbow, and cutthroat trout.

From beer labels to literary classics like A River Runs Through It, trout fishing is a beloved feature of the iconography of the American West. But as Jen Brown demonstrates in Trout Culture: How Fly Fishing Forever Changed the Rocky Mountain West, the popular conception of Rocky Mountain trout fishing as a quintessential experience of communion with nature belies the sport’s long history of environmental manipulation, engineering, and, ultimately, transformation. A fly-fishing enthusiast herself, Brown places the rise of recreational trout fishing in a local and global context. Globally, she shows how the European sport of fly-fishing came to be a defining, tourist-attracting feature of the expanding 19th-century American West. Locally, she traces the way that the burgeoning fly-fishing tourist industry shaped the environmental, economic, and social development of the Western United States: introducing and stocking favored fish species, eradicating the less favored native “trash fish,” changing the courses of waterways, and leading to conflicts with Native Americans’ fishing and territorial rights. Through this analysis, Brown demonstrates that the majestic trout streams often considered a timeless feature of the American West are in fact the product of countless human interventions adding up to a profound manipulation of the Rocky Mountain environment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKMwEkKj9jg

This collection of more than 350 memorable quotations about the passion and pleasure of fishing captures the essence of the sport like very few collections have. Here are quips, comments, and words of wisdom on all aspects of fishing from Lord Byron, Cervantes, Art Flick, John Gierach, Roderick L. Haig-Brown, Ernest Hemingway, Ted Leeson, A. J. McClane, Thomas McGuane, Arthur Ransome, Steve Raymond, Charles Ritz, Paul Schullery, G. E. M. Skues, Izaak Walton, Ed Zern, and many more. This is an ideal gift for anyone who loves to fish and a great companion for those rainy days when you can’t be out on the water.

“Spring Creek is everything a fishing book should be,” says Craig Nova. “It has the ability to convey the magic that always exists between somebody who loves fishing and a particular piece of water that endlessly lives up to its end of the bargain.” It has been called Lyons's masterpiece. The river is one of those rare places where the trout are as long as your arm but also exceedingly difficult to catch. Lyons explores its secrets and confronts its greatest challenges. At first he catches little. Then slowly, he acquires the various and special skills and disciplines necessary to take the large wary brown trout of this extraordinary river. Spring Creek is a memoir of halcyon days on a remarkable river and it draws a rare portrait of an angler actually learning to fish more wisely. It is a richly humorous and perceptive account of an angler's passion for his spot—and a book all fishermen will cherish.

This history and guide to the fly-fishing waters of Yellowstone National Park is a loving homage to the region’s iconic wild trout. Yellowstone National Park is home to some of the most storied destinations in the history of fly fishing. Casting in the Firehole River is like going back in time to when bison roamed nearly every meadow in the West. Restored to their natal streams after near extinction, native Arctic grayling can once again be plucked from icy water at the foot of breathtaking waterfalls. Meanwhile, a daylong hike into true wild country rewards an angler with a chance to catch trophy native cutthroat trout on a lonely mountain lake. In Catching Yellowstone’s Wild Trout, local journalist and experienced angler Chris Hunt explores the rich history of these beloved and bountiful waters.

Matthew Dickerson takes his readers from tiny mountain streams in the southern Rockies of New Mexico to the mighty Colorado River at the head of the Grand Canyon, to the Hill Country of Texas, exploring these various waters that manage to hold cold-loving trout in the midst of the hot desert landscapes of the American southwest. This lovingly described journey brings us through Dickerson's own life of discovery and his love of fly fishing, trout, and the rivers where trout live. Though neither an historical nor a scientific text, the writing is informed by both. The book is illustrated by original prints from Texas artist Barbara Whitehead.

Matthew Dickerson takes his readers from an Applachian trout stream in western North Carolina where wild trout are reduced to sipping cigarette butts, up through his home state of Vermont where development and the ski industry threaten the state's iconic pastoral riversides, and finally into western Maine to a once dead river that has returned to life. The tale takes us not only to the three eponymous rivers, but to other nearby streams and waters. Though neither an historical nor as scientific text, the writing is informed by both, and as readers are drawn through the tale, they will grow in their own understanding of both stream ecology and the history of human habitation and consumption. The book is illustrated by original prints from Vermont artist Courtney Allenson.

The brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) is an iconic species among fly anglers and cold-water conservationists in eastern North America. This fish registers as a powerful symbol for its beauty and its imagery in art and literature. Its presence also tells us a great deal about the health of the larger environment. When an angler has a brook trout in hand, there is confidence that the water is close to pristine. Besides being an important indicator species, the brook trout, with its gold and reddish markings and its camouflaged green and black back, is one of the most beautiful freshwater fish in North America. And beyond the beauty of the fish itself, the environment in which it is found is also part of its past and present appeal. To fish for brook trout is often to fish in the last remote and rugged landscapes in the East, “fishscapes” that have not been polluted by stocking trucks that dump nonnative brown and rainbow trout in most of the East’s accessible cold waterways. Searching for Home Waters is part science, part environmental history, and part personal journey of the author, Michael K. Steinberg, and those he interviewed during his travels. The work takes a broad perspective that examines the status of brook trout in the eastern United States, employing a “landscape” approach. In other words, brook trout do not exist in a vacuum; they are impacted by logging, agriculture, fishing policies, suburban development, mining, air pollution, and climate change. Thus, while the book focuses specifically on the status and management of the brook trout—from Georgia to Labrador—it also tells the larger story of the status of the eastern environment. As a “pilgrimage,” this book is also a journey of the heart and contains Steinberg’s personal reflections on his relationship with the brook trout and its geography.