Trout anglers, as a group, are deeply polarized. The author travels to the famed Driftless Area in the rural southwestern corner of Wisconsin to fish its spring creeks for brown trout and explore the science, culture and history of social divides. "Lost in the Driftless" looks at the role of regulations, the impacts of destination fisheries, the role of social science in fisheries management, and creek and wild trout restoration. The author's guide is a well-known, self-described Wisconsin "trout regulations protester." Author documents his fight to bring the "locals" back to trout fishing.

“A fast-moving story about small town life with characters that seem to have walked off the pages of Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology.”—The Wall Street Journal The few hundred souls who inhabit Words, Wisconsin, are an extraordinary cast of characters. The middle-aged couple who zealously guards their farm from a scheming milk cooperative. The lifelong invalid, crippled by conflicting emotions about her sister. A cantankerous retiree, haunted by childhood memories after discovering a cougar in his haymow. The former drifter who forever alters the ties that bind a community. In his first novel in 30 years, David Rhodes offers a vivid and unforgettable look at life in small-town America. “[Rhodes’s] finest work yet . . . Driftless is the best work of fiction to come out of the Midwest in many years.”—Chicago Tribune “Set in a rural Wisconsin town, the book presents a series of portraits that resemble Edgar Lee Masters’s ‘Spoon River Anthology’ in their vividness and in the cumulative picture they create of village life.”—The New Yorker “Encompassing and incisive, comedic and profound, Driftless is a radiant novel of community and courage.”—Booklist (starred review) “A welcome antidote to overheated urban fiction . . . A quiet novel of depth and simplicity.”—Kirkus Reviews “It takes a while for all these stories to kick in, but once they do, Rhodes shows he still knows how to keep readers riveted. Add a blizzard, a marauding cougar and some rabble-rousing militiamen, and the result is a novel that is as affecting as it is pleasantly overstuffed.”—Publishers Weekly

The Driftless Land, a collection of essays by Kevin Koch, is a search for the spirit of place among the bluffs, woodlands, and prairies of the Upper Mississippi River valley. The Midwest is commonly known for its flatlands, for oceans of corn pressing towards the horizon beneath a big sky. Lesser known are the steep hills and bluffs, the ravines and towering rock outcroppings where the upper Mississippi carves its meandering path. These rugged lands amid the prairies are known as The Driftless Area, a 20,000 square-mile region of northeast Iowa, northwest Illinois, southeast Minnesota, and southwest and central Wisconsin, bypassed by most of the glaciers. Koch observes, "You can 'love nature' and 'love the land'--but you won't know place until you've walked slowly and attentively through Lost Canyon or the Kickapoo Valley Reserve or Swiss Valley or Trempealeau Mountain, and then returned to learn what you can about them." Hidden within the woodlands are the imprints of human history and the deeper geological story as well, the story of a land untouched by the ancient onslaught of leveling glaciers. The result is a call to know place deeply, whatever place you inhabit.

From the award-winning author of The End of Vandalism. “Equal parts heist caper, ghost story and romance . . . in prose that is spare and sly.” (The New York Times) Set in the rugged region of the Midwest that gives the novel its title, The Driftless Area is the story of Pierre Hunter, a young bartender with unfailing optimism, a fondness for coin tricks, and an uncanny capacity for finding trouble. When he falls in love, with the mysterious and isolated Stella Rosmarin, Pierre becomes the central player in a revenge drama he must unravel and bring to its shocking conclusion. Along the way he will liberate $77,000 from a murderous thief, summon the resources that have eluded him all his life, and come to question the very meaning of chance and mortality. For nothing is as it seems in The Driftless Area. Identities shift, violent secrets lie in wait, the future can cause the past, and love becomes a mission that can take you beyond this world. In its tender, cool irony, The Driftless Area recalls the best of neonoir, and its cast of bona fide small-town eccentrics adrift in the American Midwest make for a clever and deeply pleasurable read from one of our most beloved authors. “Drury is nothing less than a wizard . . . Not since Twin Peaks has he rural surreal had such an artful airing.” —The Boston Globe “Superb . . . by one of America’s finest, most imaginative authors.” —San Francisco Chronicle “With deceptively simple prose, Drury is able to evoke characters and scenes in just a few brush strokes.” —Los Angeles Times

Jay Ford Thurston brings anglers the best fifty streams in Wisconsin and the science of trout, their habits and their habitats.

In this completely updated and expanded second edition, veteran anglers Jim Humphrey and Bill Shogren have added information on dozens of new streams. The authors describe their native trout waters with an evocative sense of place and anecdotes that convey not only the details but also the experience an angler can expect.

A profile of twenty of Wisconsin's finest streams. The authors share their fishing experiences, offering detailed maps and descriptions of the stream's location and natural setting, and conservation history.

The enchanting, enigmatic Driftless Area of the Upper Midwest is anthologized here with readings and illustrations from the region's Native people, explorers, scientists, historians, farmers, journalists, poets, and artists, including Black Hawk, Mark Twain, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Frank Lloyd Wright, Aldo Leopold, August Derleth, and David Rhodes.