Sport Fishing

Well-known nature and conservation writer Ted Williams is an avid fisherman who has devoted many years to writing about the sport and advocating the preservation of bodies of water and species of fish. Here, he brings together his love of angling with his profound sense of responsibility for the environment.

Brilliant, witty, perceptive essays about fly-fishing, the natural world, and life in general by the acknowledged master of fishing writers.

In 1898, the British were building a railway line between Mombasa in Kenya and Uganda. At the Tsavo River in Kenya where a bridge needed to be built, the project was suddenly interrupted by two man-eating lions that targeted the camps of the workers. Over a period of nine months, the lions killed scores of people. These lions were deliberately hunting people, preferring humans over any other prey, and they seemed to have supernatural abilities in evading all attempts to stop them. Colonel J.H. Patterson, the chief engineer in charge of the project, finally managed to eliminate them.

Imagine if you could learn to shoot safely and effectively at home saving you time and money you don't have. Well, now you can! Navy SEAL Shooting teaches you the groundbreaking training method developed by one of the most respected firearms instructors in the world, retired Navy SEAL Chris Sajnog. With easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions and 385 illustrations, this book covers everything you need to know to make effective shots in any high-stress situation.

For hunters, listening to the accounts of kindred spirits recalling the drama and action that go with good days afield ranks among life's most pleasurable activities. Here, then, are some of the best hunting tales ever written, stories that sweep from charging lions in the African bush to mountain goats in the mountain crags of the Rockies; from the gallant bird dogs of the Southern pinelands to the great Western hunts of Theodore Roosevelt.

In All Fishermen Are Liars, Gierach travels around North America seeking out quintessential fishing experiences, whether it's at a busy stream or a secluded lake hidden amid snow-capped mountains. He talks about the art of fly-tying and the quest for the perfect steelhead fly ("The Nuclear Option"), about fishing in the Presidential Pools previously fished by the elder George Bush, and the importance of traveling with like-minded companions when caught in a soaking rain.

John Gierach demonstrates once again that fishing, when done right, is as much a philosophical pursuit as a sport. Gierach travels to Wyoming and Maine and points in between, searching out new fly-fishing adventures and savoring familiar waters with old friends. Along the way he meditates on the importance of good guides, the challenge of salmon fishing, and the zen of fishing alone. On a more serious note, he ponders the damaging effects of disasters both natural and man-made.

On the last day of June, my bush pilot left me alone and without food in a wilderness rain forest of Southeast Alaska. He would return in September. For the next 10 weeks my survival would depend on foraging, hunting, and fishing on an island I would share with 1,600 brown bears.

Once again, John Gierach tells the world why the pastime of fly-fishing makes so much sense—except when it doesn't. In sparkling prose, with more than a touch of humor, he recalls the joys of landing that trout he's been watching for the last hour—and then losing an even fatter one a little later. Joy and frustration mix in Gierach's latest appreciation of the fly-fishing life as he takes us from his home waters on the Front Range of the Rockies in Colorado to fishing meccas all over North America.

Dive into the rewarding hobby of fly fishing, mastering essential techniques in just weeks, even if you’re a complete beginner! Ever watched someone fly fishing and thought, "That looks peaceful, engaging, and yet challenging, how can I do that?" Have you felt overwhelmed by the complicated process of casting a fly? Do you wish for a comprehensive, beginner-friendly guide that can transform you from an amateur fly fisher to a competent one? You are not alone.

This marvelous collection features stories from some of America’s finest and most respected writers about every outdoorsman’s favorite and most loyal hunting partner: his dog. For the first time, the stories of acclaimed writers such as Richard Ford, Tom Brokaw, Howell Raines, Rick Bass, Sydney Lea, Jim Harrison, Tom McGuane, Phil Caputo, and Chris Camuto come together in one collection. Hunters and non-hunters alike will recognize in these poignant tales the universal aspects of owning dogs.

J. W. Schultz (1859-1947) was an author, explorer, and historian who lived among the Blackfeet as a fur trader. In his famous book Rising Wolf, Schultz tells the story of Hugh Monroe who came to the Blackfoot country when he was 16 and was adopted into the Blackfeet tribe. He accompanied war parties, took part in buffalo hunts, and helped to make peace between the Crows and Blackfeet.

Blood Knots is about angling, about great fish caught and lost, but it is also about friendship, honor, and coming of age. As an adult, Jennings has sought out lost and secretive waterways, probing waters at dead of night in search of giant pike. The quest, as always, is for more than the living quarry. For only by searching far beneath the surface, he suggests in this most moving and thought-provoking of memoirs, can you connect with your own deep history. Jennings offers here a striking, elegiac narrative for lovers of unique memoirs and the finest fly-fishing literature.

This guide to traditional bowhunting with a longbow or recurve combines the best of both worlds for beginners and veteran bowhunters. How-to chapters share hard-earned wisdom that will help you perfect your skills and get close to game, while engaging stories tell of the authors experiences hunting white-tailed deer in the east, chasing big game in the American West, and trekking to South Africa in search of Greater Kudu and other plains game.

Few anglers will skip knowing what a master angler and thinker prefers for his fly box. This title covers a gamut of patterns essential to trout fishing in a variety of circumstances: dry flies, wet flies and nymphs, and streamers. Gierach's legion of fans of his regular magazine column will be highly inclined to buy this title.

Fly fishing, historian Mark Kurlansky has found, is a battle of wits, fly fisher vs. fish - and the fly fisher does not always (or often) win. The targets - salmon, trout and char; and for some, bass, tarpon, tuna, bonefish and even marlin - are highly intelligent, wily, strong and athletic animals. The allure, Kurlansky learns, is that fly fishing makes catching a fish as difficult as possible. There is an art, too, in the crafting of flies.

An end to Roderick L. Haig-Brown’s seasons cycle, Fisherman’s Summer is a book that can be listened to again and again, for both knowledge and pleasure. In this installment, he focuses again on the rivers of his native British Columbia such as the Campbell, the Columbia, and the Nimpkish. Among his vast wealth of knowledge concerning fly fishing, listeners are also exposed to his wise reflections.

George Bird Evans is a man to whom upland shooting has been a way of life for 50 years, and his book is both a creed for shooters and a fascinating sharing of the experiences of a true specialist. It is not a book for meat hunters (although possession of the game means as much to the author as to the next man), rather it is a book, half "how-to," half anecdotal and philosophical, that reveals in rich and intimate detail the unity that makes upland shooting that triad of bird-dog-gun in which no part is complete without the others.

Follow Ernest Hemingway's exploits on the Bahamian island of Bimini from 1935 to 1937, the very moment in time when the International Game Fish Association (under the author's co-leadership) was emerging. Covers Hemingway's role in the formation of the IGFA, his underappreciated seminal writing about competitive saltwater angling when the sport was still in its infancy, the amazing fishing he enjoyed on the island, and the way all of these experiences translated into the composition of his posthumous novel Islands in the Stream.

Prior to his untimely death, in 2010, Captain Phil Harris was a star of Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch, the hit show that follows the exhilarating lives of Alaskan crab fishermen as they brave the vicious Bering Sea. He led his crew through hurricane-force winds and four-story-high waves, hauling in millions of pounds of crab and raking in millions of dollars. Phil worked hard, but he played even harder....