For three years, Richard Louv listened to America by going fishing. To explore the cultures of angling, he traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific and to the Gulf Coast, too; from bass waters north and south to fly-fishing waters east and west. He joined a professional bass tournament on Lake Erie and got a casting lesson from fly-fishing legend Joan Wulff in Colorado. He angled with corporate executives in Montana and stoic steelheaders in the Northwest. He went ice fishing on Michigan's Upper Peninsula and fly-fishing for sharks in California. In the Midwest, he fished with the host of the nation's longest-running television fishing program. He spent time with the captains of Florida, the poachers of the West, and the regulars who fish the Harlem and Hudson Rivers in New York City. Fly-Fishing for Sharks is the delightful result of Richard Louv's journey, a portrait of America on the water, fishing rod in hand. From Whitefish Willy to Bass'n Gal's Sugar Ferris, the people Louv writes about are simply unforgettable. As diverse as the cultures of fishing are. Richard Louv found that certain values unite them. Most of the anglers he spoke with care passionately about the health of the country's water; some have pondered what fishing tells us about our changing relationship with nature. Every one of them finds something renewing, even healing, in angling -- and many of these men and women believe that fishing can be a thread that binds the generations. Louv discovers from a Hemingway son what it really was like to go fishing with Papa; he fishes and talks about fatherhood with Robert Kennedy, Jr.; and he shares the joys and pains of caring for his own children. Fly-Fishing for Sharks is by turns funny, thoughtful, and poignant -- a revealing look at our country from an unusual perspective.

Contents



Introduction: Shop Talk



Headwaters



It Changes Everything



The Lost World



Fish Eyes and Lizard Legs



Flyover Waters



You See That?



Mall Fishing



The Contender



The Contest



Sex and the Bass'n Gals



Hidden Waters



Whitefish Willy and the Northern Lights



Ice Flying



Poaching the King's Fish



Flywaters



True Story



Relics



The Fishermom



Industrial-Strength Fly-Fishing



Lodge Life



Fishing with Papa



Ghostwaters



Nick Raven and the River of Heaven



River Witching



The Giveaway



Fishing for Ghosts (or, Sasquatch of the Stilly)



City Waters



A Trout Grows in Brooklyn



Down the Potomac



Saltwaters



Captains of Florida



Bring Me the Head of Osceola



Renewing Waters



Murky Waters: The Morality of Fishing



Fishing with Bobby



Moving On



Notes



Index