Steelhead Country is not just a collection of random fishing stories. It is a personal and lovingly crafted account of a life spent immersed in a tradition that stretches back generations. Acclaimed flyfisherman and author Steve Raymond paints a picture of the world of steelhead trout that is a realm of vast landscapes, of cold mountain rivers flowing down through silent, shadowed forests . . . , of ragged coastlines honeycombed with hidden harbors and secret bays where bright ri...

Two of America’s foremost fly-fishing authors join forces in this unique book offering guidance to others who aspire to write about fly fishing. Paul Schullery and Steve Raymond, both members of the Fly Fishing Hall of Fame, have separately written many fly-fishing books, both fiction and nonfiction, and edited three fly-fishing magazines. Here they offer the benefit of their many years of experience to help others who aspire to write about the sport, including everything you need to know ...

This collection of six fly-fishing tales, from the best fly-fishing writer in the Pacific Northwest, includes:The Bonefisherman’s Dilemma: Freddie Woodson planned to write a story about his trip to Sugar Cay Bonefish Resort, sell it to a fishing magazine and use the money to help pay trip expenses. But he didn’t count on drinking too much rum, falling asleep in a hot tub, meeting a cute native girl or losing the only bonefish he managed to hook, so there was no story and no money. ...

Stories are what keep history alive, and Rivers of the Heart is the perfect book to keep the history of fly fishing alive. Steve Raymond shares some of the best and brightest moments from his nearly fifty years of fly-fishing experiences, a long fly-fishing life that contains ecstasy, agony, and passion for trout, salmon, and saltwater gamefish in waters from Canada to the Caribbean, northern Scotland to the South Pacific.The heart-warming stories and funny moments within ...

The 78th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment took the field under command of a lackadaisical colonel who was frequently absent and feuded with his own officers and superiors. Distrusted by senior officers, the 78th became a regiment that was always left behind—until its own officers forced their reluctant colonel to resign. His replacement was a forceful leader who turned the regiment into a crack fighting outfit that performed heroically in the battle of Chickamauga and many of the great...

According to Steve Raymond, tying flies requires imagination and skill, creativity and discipline, patience and vision.” But for the fly fisher, tying flies is more than that-it is the creation of a living insect from fur, feathers, or synthetic materials and is an art and a passion.Blue Upright discusses the fly patterns that have served Steve Raymond most faithfully over the years. There are well-known and famous flies, such as the Crazy Charlie; there are flies that wo...

Witty and heartfelt, Sixty Seasons looks back over more than half a century of fly fishing and writing about fly fishing. Steve Raymond returns with an informative and delightful collection of memories, stretching over his sixty seasons spent fishing.Raymond takes the opportunity to write passionately about the full cast of his life, as well as how fly-fishing interacts with his life as a journalist, and vice versa. He offers sage advice about books, writers, rods, methods,...

Nervous water has a meaning: while the fleeting crease or subtle wrinkle on the surface of a lake or stream could be nothing, wise anglers known that these small surface movements are nearly always signs of fish stirring below-as it is with the sport of fly fishing. With a reputation of tranquility and contemplation, it is sometimes hard to believe that, beneath the surface, fly fishing has a constant current of new thoughts and theories, is always in pursuit of new technologies, and enter...

This is a new book from the Pacific Northwest’s finest angling writer.There is an abundance of literature on the pleasure and wonder of fly fishing. The themes are familiar and well traveled: ruminations on aging and the passage of time; musings on marriage and balancing the love of friends and families with that of fishing; reflections on the need for companionship versus the quiet beauty and solitude of fly fishing.Now, Steve Raymond takes these well-expl...

Modern-day fly fishing, like much in life, has become exceedingly complex, with high-tech gear, a confusing array of flies and terminal tackle, accompanied by high-priced fishing guides. This book reveals that the best way to catch trout is simply, with a rod and a fly and not much else. The wisdom in this book comes from a simpler time, when the premise was: the more you know, the less you need. It teaches the reader how to discover where the fish are, at what depth, and what they are fee...

Upriver and Downstream gathers seventy columns about fishing—from freshwater to saltwater, from small ponds to the Great Lakes, from the Pacific Northwest to post-Soviet Russia—written for the “Outdoors” column of the New York Times.Contributors include such celebrated names as Nick Lyons, Thomas McGuane, Nelson Bryant, Peter Kaminsky, Ernest Schweibert, and Robert H. Boyle. Short, evocative, informative, and entertaining, here are pieces about fly-fishing for wil...

Brilliant, witty, perceptive essays about fly-fishing, the natural world, and life in general by the acknowledged master of fishing writers.If John Gierach is living in a fool’s paradise, then it’s a paradise that his regular readers will recognize and new fans will delight in discovering. Laced with the inimitable blend of wit and wisdom that have made him fly-fishing’s foremost scribe, Fool’s Paradise chronicles the fishing life in all its glory (catchin...