THE CATCH OF A LIFETIME: Moments of glory. Edited by Peter Kaminsky.

A gorgeously illustrated collection of first-person stories on the sublime joy of flyfishing

For every flyfisher, there is a moment, etched into deepest memory, when the stars aligned around an encounter with a great fish. Though years or decades may pass, anglers can still recall those fleeting minutes: the direction of the wind, the length of the cast, the course of the fly, the instant of 
the take, the leaps and surges of the fish. In The Catch of a Lifetime, prize-winning author Peter Kaminsky has collected thrilling, beautiful, and evocative stories on the joys of flyfishing and the one flyfishing memory that stands out above all others. In Kaminsky’s case, it wasn’t the 200-pound tuna he fought—and lost—against the shore in Montauk. It was a plump brown trout, dappled with fire-engine-red spots in a yellow halo, barely fourteen inches and caught early  one summer morning as mist rose off a Catskills creek.

The contributors are artists, authors, guides, and poets who have a singular passion for flyfishing, including Carl Hiaasen, Joan Wulff, Nick Lyons, Rachel Finn, Tom Colicchio, Rachel Maddow, Mark Kurlansky, Brittany Howard, Hilary Hutcheson, and John McPhee. Their encounters bring to life vivid recollections of a forty-pound salmon taking to the air, the furious jolt of a barracuda, the acrobatic somersaults of an enormous Florida tarpon, the serenity of a smallmouth caught at last light in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters. The works of flyfishing’s greatest artists and photographers weave their way through more than seventy unforgettable essays.

PETER KAMINSKY is one of America’s leading angling journalists and authors. His Outdoors column has appeared in the New York Times for thirty-five years. A recipient of the C.F. Orvis Outdoor Writing Award, Kaminsky has been a contributing editor at Field & Stream, Sports Afield, and Outdoor Life and was managing editor of National Lampoon. His angling writing has also appeared in Fly Fisherman, Condé Nast Traveler, Smithsonian Magazine, GQ, The Field, and Anglers Journal. Among his books are The Moon Pulled Up an Acre of Bass, American Waters, The Flyfisherman’s Guide to the Meaning of Life, Fishing for Dummies, and Flyfishing for Dummies. As avid a cook as he is a fisherman, he’s written eighteen cookbooks, including three with Francis Mallmann. His television credits include creator and executive producer of The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor and The Gershwin Prize for Popular song. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.