Fishing Stories

Fishing Storiesnets an abundant catch of wonderful writing in a wide variety of genres and styles. The moods range from the rollicking humour of Rudyard Kiplings “On Dry-Cow Fishing as a Fine Art” and the rural gothic of Annie Proulxs “The Wer-Trout” to the haunting elegy of Norman Macleans “A River Runs Through It.”

Many of these tales celebrate human bonds forged over a rod, including Guy de Maupassants “Two Friends,” Jimmy Carters “Fishing with My Daddy,” and Ernest HemingwaysThe Garden of Eden. Some deal in reverence and romance, as in Roland Pertwees “The River God,” and some in adventure and the stuff of legend, as in Zane Greys “The First Thousand-Pounder” and Ron Rashs “Their Ancient Glittering Eyes.” There are works that confront head-on the heartbreaks and frustrations of the sport, from Thomas McGuanes meditation on long spells of inaction as the essence of fishing in “The Longest Silence” to Raymond Carver on a boys deflated triumph in the gut-wrenching masterpiece “Nobody Said Anything.” And alongside the works of literary giants are the memories of people both great and humble who have found meaning and fulfillment in fishing, from a former American president to a Scottish gamekeepers daughter.

Whether set against the open ocean or tiny mountain streams, in ancient China, tropical Tahiti, Paris under siege, or the vast Canadian wilderness, these stories cast wide and strike deep into the universal joys, absurdities, insights, and tragedies of life.