IN THE RING OF THE RISE

More than fifty years ago, Vincent Marinaro's Modern Dry-Fly Code was hailed as "the best angling work of the last half century" and "the first original American contribution to fly-fishing." Now, for the first time in paperback, The Lyons Press brings Marinaro's intense and remarkable originality to a second book of profound significance.

Marinaro's approach is nothing short of revolutionary. His startling high-speed color photographs explore the feeding patterns and behavior of the trout, revealing unsuspected responses that the fisherman can exploit with new tactics and new fly patterns. In addition, he provides a novel and unique way of testing fly patterns, the "game of nods"; a fresh look at rod design; new revelations about the spinner; an expanded treatment of his pathbreaking study of the Caenis; and further explorations with terrestrials. There is also a special discussion of limestone and freestone rivers.

A thoughtful fisherman and a fine photographer, Marinaro sets out to debunk the mystery of the trout's environment and feeding behavior. "A trout lives in a secret world," he writes. "It is a small world in which many dramatic events are played out in watery obscurity, veiled from the keenest eyes. And even though he is stalked and pursued relentlessly by the most attentive land creature on earth, his life-style remains much of a mystery." Marinaro begins to reveal the mystery through the clarity of his own sharp vision and the technological wizardry of a high-speed camera--both of which are focused on the ring of the rise, or riseform, which is, in essence, the trout's dining room. "A trout is vulnerable to the fisherman because he eats," Marinaro explains, and by trying to visually parse what the trout sees from what he doesn't see (how the fish moves toward his dinner and how he takes it) the author ushers us directly to the dining room table to understand what happens when a fish is presented with a fly--his supper--from the fish's point of view. Marinaro's skill at identifying a trout's myriad feeding patterns, and his ability to decode them, is precisely the kind of knowledge the studious angler salivates over. Used cunningly, it translates into an engraved dinner invitation for delivery on the end of a hook. --Jeff Silverman