Spherical Manipulations

In this book John covers the history, the basic technique and a ‘How To. section on making Tenkara flies, and making your own furled lines. Tenkara fishing can be seen as a streamlined counterpart to western fly-fishing. The equipment is designed to focus on the actual fishing and catching them, not the major preoccupation with the equipment. The equipment is designed to direct focus to the actual fishing and catching of the fish. A rod, Tenkara line and fly are necessary for Tenkara fishing (no reel is used). The appeal of Tenkara is its elegant simplicity. There are also other ...

After the publication of his most recent book, Alex Smyth receives a trout fly in the mail at his home address in rural Canada - with no message and no return address. It stirs a fear in him that he is being stalked, and it awakens deeply buried, inchoate memories from his childhood in Ireland, a time before he was old enough to understand the adult world around him. It also evokes the guilt that he may have murdered a man, a feeling so strong it changes him and threatens his marriage.

Paradise, Gierach shows us, is relative; it can be found in the guilty luxury of fishing private waters or when one is soaked to the skin, in a small canoe on a big lake in a storm a hundred miles from anywhere, exhilarated after a day's fishing. There are also pleasures to be found in unexpected places: solitary fishing trips, fishing for less-appreciated fish like carp, or meeting a guide who at first seems like an inarticulate ax murderer but who proves to be a "Zen master among fishing guides."

It's the beginning of trout fishing season, and Josh Greenberg - proprietor of one of the nation's most famous fishing outfitters, on America's most iconic trout-fishing stream, the Au Sable River in Michigan - is standing in the Au Sable at dusk when he gets the call that a dear fishing buddy has died.