"The secret places are the soul of fishing.... It may be a private spring creek with armed guards where there are huge browns and lots of them, or it may just be an unknown beaver pond where a handful of book trout have grown to a whopping eleven inches. In either case, it's a spot that, by the simple virtue of being left more or less alone, has reached is full potential. "So begins this brilliant short book, in which half a dozen such places are featured. There is a pool made memorable because it is part of a risky childhood adventure; hidden local streams; sections of a wealthy ranch; secret stretches - full of rattlesnakes - and private ponds with trout as long as your leg. All are made magically vivid by Gierach's special prose - and all stand starkly against a more public natural world increasingly threatened with ecological disaster. (53/4 X 81/2, 100 pages, illustrations) <p> Gierach has known since childhood that "the secret places are the soul of fishing." It was, in fact, a boyhood adventure to a forbidden pool deep in the woods that awakened his love for the contemplative joys of fishing and for the magical places so basic to the mythology fly-fishermen share. "If Mark Twain were alive and a modern-day fly-fisherman, he still would be hard put to top John Gierach."--Sports Illustrated. Line drawings throughout. </p><p>
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