Reel Deep in Montana's Rivers (The Pruett Series)

Book by John, Holt

The pun in the title gives warning that this new volume of Holt's journals of Montana angling (after Knee Deep in Montana's Trout Streams and Waist Deep in Montana's Lakes ) is the shallowest and most facile of the three. He offers serious reporting on endangered bull-trout angling and the environment, particularly that of the drainages of the Tongue, Flathead, Swan, Sun and Jefferson rivers. But the rest of this slight collection smacks of an amateur stand-up comic's routine. Warnings about stream habitat losses in Montana, which is arguably the last great wild trout fishery in the lower 48, are enervated by too lengthy sentences, by scripted conversations the author imagines pursuing with Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials and by jabs at developers and clear-cutters. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

With this work, Holt brings his fly-fishing trilogy to a close. He describes the Middle Fork of the Flathead as well as the Swan, Blackfoot, Sun, Jefferson, and Tongue rivers. Besides giving great detail on which flies are successful, Holt decries the modern demands on fishing streams made by mining, clear-cutting, and overgrazing. As a result of these intrusions, the habitat for native species such as the bull trout is being destroyed and cannot be easily restored. Besides these dark observations, Holt wittily tells the legend of the Wooly Bugger and his fantasy of stocking the Tongue River with Taimen, a salmonoid native to Siberia. The book includes maps, photographs, and destination information. Recommended for public libraries with avid fly-fishing patrons and Montana collections.
- Kathy Ellerton, Jefferson Lib. System, Jefferson City, Mo.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.