Fish On, Fish Off

by Stephen Sautner

Overview

Fish On, Fish Off is the angling version of Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. Through a series of nearly 50 personal essays, the author explores what happens when the self-taught, DIY angler sets out to fish the world – and winds up stumbling into every possible pitfall and danger along the way. These include: getting chased from a river by an elephant, surviving a terrifying helicopter ride over the Straits of Magellan, and breaking his only rod on the second cast in Cuba’s Bay of Pigs.

Closer to home, he is swept off a jetty on Block Island by a rogue wave, winds up in an emergency room more than once with fishing lures hanging from various parts of his anatomy, and perhaps most daunting, surviving 30 years of the scrum better known as opening day of trout season in his crowded home state of New Jersey.

If Upriver and Downstream showed the poetry of angling, Fish On, Fish Off shows the scars.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493025060
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	10/03/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	995,463
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Ever since he saw his older brother lose an enormous summer flounder off a dock at the New Jersey Shore when he was 12 years old, Stephen Sautner has been trying to catch fish. Any fish. This has led him to the Falkland Islands where he cast for sea trout next to an active mine field, to the Zambezi River where three-ton elephants guarded pools filled with tiger fish and Nile crocodiles. In 2007, he edited Upriver and Downstream, an anthology of fishing stories from the "Outdoors" column of The New York Times, and has been an active contributor to the column since 1994. His stories have also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Fly Rod & Reel, Wildlife Conservation, and Underwater Naturalist.
Along with Sautner’s 15 years of contributing to the NY Times, he is also the director of communications for the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo, where he publicizes the Society’s conservation programs.

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Introduction: Fish On xi

Part I Early, Spastic Casts

Lot G 3

The Great Lost Fish 7

The Diamond Jig 15

The Chain Letter 19

Getting Thrown In 21

Ya Gotta Hook 'em to Cook 'em 23

Fishing Ruined My Life 25

Part II Snags

Opening Daze 29

Party Boat Blues 34

The Best Fish Ever 39

Buck Bug Fever 42

A Bridge Tarpon Too Far 44

My Cup Runneth Over 47

Skinning Mr. Whiskers 51

Bottom Fishing 53

Poor Grayling 56

The King of the River 58

Part III Streamside Hazards

Fishing With Griz 63

The Legend of Pusfoot 67

Tackle-Busters 71

Hooked on Hooks 76

Losing the Bunker Cup 80

Part IV Catching the Creeps

Creepy Uranium Man 87

Night of the Living Hellgrammites 90

Casting Past the Graveyard 94

The Brotherhood of the Folded Pants 96

Pleasure Boating 99

Part V Blood Knots

Jacked Up 105

Fishing With Girls 108

The Mother's Day Trout 112

Bowling for Shad 114

The Gentleman Angler Quiz 118

Part VI In Foreign Waters

Fishing On the Job 123

The Elephant in the River 126

All Hail the Falklands Mullet 128

Finding Oscar 131

The Cuban Eight-Weight Crisis 134

Forbidden Love in Guatemala 137

Ten Casts in the Congo 140

Part VII Later, Graceless Casts

The 20/40 Clue 145

Respect the Hex 148

John's Haunted Crappie 151

A Wild Dilemma 156

The November Striper Diaries 159

Notes on April Shad 164

My Pet Brookies 169

A December Striper Report 173

Fish Off 176

Editorial Reviews

'Every fisherman will find pieces of himself between the pages'

ABC News

About Fish On, Fish Off: "From Cape Breton to Cuba to New Jersey, these personal and resonant fishing tales will keep your mind on the water when your body can't be. Sautner has written a vivid and beautiful kind of memoir through fishing and you'll enjoy being his companion!"—James Prosek, artist and author of Trout: An Illustrated History and Eels: An Exploration from New Zealand to the Sargasso of the World's most Mysterious Fish “Fish On, Fish Off” is a hilarious, engaging collection of everything the rest of us won’t admit—like fish that get away, not just usually but always; the unsung art of rod breaking; and catching fish only Sautner has heard of. How refreshing to read the memoirs of a weird fisherman—i.e., an honest one. —Ted Williams, Conservation Editor, Fly Rod & Reel "What a delicious basket of short, witty, perceptive, and memorable glimpses into Sautner's rich fishing life. Full of adventure—from New Jersey to Alaska—and hilarious misadventures, Fish On, Fish Off is a treat all fly fishers will love."—Nick Lyons, author of Fishing Stories, Spring Creek, and Bright Rivers "Stephen Sautner's Fish On, Fish Off has everything you'd want to find in a book about the outdoors: adventure, humor, pathos, suffering, triumph, and plenty of fish. This book of essays proves once and for all that poetry is as much a part of fishing as a rod and reel."— Steven Rinella, author of The Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine, American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon, and Meat Eater: Adventures from the Life of an American Hunter. "These travels with a fishing rod reveal a whole new dimension to the world. And even when the underwater residents are not cooperating, there is always a tale to be reeled in."—Jeremy Wade, Host of "River Monsters"

'Almost anybody can tell the hero stories and tales of conquest, but it takes a real writer (and angler) to be able to convey failure and challenges in a way that’s still grippy and entertaining. Sautner has a great knack for wit and humility. Think of him in the Zane Grey meets Murphy’s Law context. There is some truly perceptive and interesting stuff in this book, and it never sags.' – Trout Unlimited

From the Publisher