Full Creel: A Nick Lyons Reader

One of America's leading writers on fishing presents a collection of his finest essays, anecdotes, and stories that capture the meaning of angling in the author's life as he describes the integral links among fishing, family, philosophy, and literature.

Fly-fishing aficionados know Lyons as one of the more eminent writers and publishers of angling literature. This omnibus gleans the best of his seven fishing books, from 1970's The Seasonable Angler to last year's My Secret Fishing Life. Whether fireside in New York tending his gear or streamside fishing a trout, Lyons is a personable and generous companion. These 80-some essays range widely, from boyhood trespasses on Brooklyn lawns in search of fat earthworms to his uneasy reign as a globe-trotting "bogus expert." While plenty of brooding, introspective pieces by other writers pay tribute to anglers' yearning for solitude and beauty, Lyons avoids the earnest, hermetic solipsism that so often mars the genre. His strongest essays are simple narratives that focus on family and fishing buddiesAmany of them true angling legends. Constant throughout this formidable compendium is Lyons's deeply abiding love (addiction, he rightly calls it) for the chase. He bumbles frequentlyAfalling out of boats, spraying fly dope in his eyes, miring his rental car in sand, fishing without a hookAbut also passes along ample wisdom about fishing and life. The former, he writes, "is merely a lovely, useless activity that, somehow, has become an axial line in my life, an anchor... a magnet for most of what I had to say on any subject." Lyons has plenty to say and he says it with such humility, good humor and perspective that even non-anglers have good reason to fish here. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Publisher and writer Lyons brings together a retrospective sampling of his fly-fishing essays. Drawing from seven previous books published over the last 30 years, including My Secret Fishing Life , the book offers a thoughtful look at the angling life, from childhood through old age. Most of the essays are about trout, but some discuss saltwater fish, panfish, and bass (Lyons' "Largemouth Magic" is among the best bass essays of all time). Other highlights include profiles of fishermen Art Flick and Sparse Grey Hackle. Although collections professing to reflect a writer's entire oeuvre are often either too long or suffer from glaring omissions, this one benefits not only from expert selection but also from the arrangement of the pieces, which results in superb pacing. Thomas McGuane supplies an insightful introduction, and Lyons' wife, Mari, contributes the evocative illustrations. A fine testament to the career of one of our best outdoors writers. John Rowen
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