A Fly Rod of Your Own

"Informs, inspires, and entertains. . . . Gierach brings a skeptical, wry voice to the peril and promise of twenty-first-century fishing." * Booklist * "John Gierach is the patron saint of American fly-fishing. When days go extremely well on the river I think of Gierach. When days go extremely badly I think of Gierach." -- C.J. Box, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Off the Grid "After 20 books on fly-fishing, you'd think John Gierach would run out of ways to say Me Fool Fish. But dive into A Fly Rod of Your Own and you'll find not just a host of enjoyably fresh takes on this magnificent obsession, but a fresh understanding of why Gierach is the bestselling fish-writer since Izaak Walton." -- James R. Babb, author of Fish Won't Let Me Sleep "In penning a recent tribute to a departed giant and fishing friend, Jim Harrison, I found that no one had better anticipated and articulated that loss than Jim himself. Gierach puts me in a similar position. Since no one writes of our sport more pleasingly, why not let John tell us what we love about it? `We go into wild places to catch wild fish for personal reasons that may be complicated or as simple as the urge to escape the present-which admittedly looks none too promising-into, if not the actual past, at least into a kind of timelessness where life still makes sense.' Amen, and thanks for a lifetime of pleasure and sense." -- David James Duncan, author of The River Why and The Brothers K "Gierach's deceptively laconic prose masks an accomplished storyteller. . . . His alert and slightly off-kilter observations place him in the general neighborhood of Mark Twain and James Thurber." * Publishers Weekly * "After five decades, 20 books and countless columns, [John Gierach] is still a master." -- Monte Burke * Forbes * "John Gierach is the American Turgenev, that is, if Turgenev had a sense of humor, fished like Lee Wulff, and was as wise as Marcus Aurelius. This means that no one is in Gierach's league when it comes to writing about trout fishing. A Fly Rod Of Your Own makes you feel you are having a beer with your best friend who is not only funny, companionable, but just great to hang out with. When it comes to fly fishing, Gierach is like a sex therapist. He has seen it all." -- Craig Nova, author of All the Dead Yale Men and The Constant Heart "A must-read for restless fly-fishermen." * The Wall Street Journal *