Angling Days

“From the very first, it seems, fishing was a respite and a therapy along with all of its other potentially redemptive qualities.” —Robert DeMott

Spanning more than forty-five years, Angling Days is a collection of Robert DeMott’s numerous journal entries, each a small essay in itself, jotted down during the placid moments of fishing in and along the streams and rivers of North America. Through his journaling, DeMott carries on the angling tradition of channeling the tranquility of fly fishing into creative endeavors, whether by painting, sketching, fly tying, or writing. For him, it was writing—something he did whenever he could, whether in the midst of fishing or during a break away from the water.

Angling Days is a lifetime of work, a chronicle of what it is to be an angler seeking the most pristine waters and the smartest fish. It is a collection of entries and musings in the vein of DeMott’s literary hero, Henry David Thoreau, and promises to shine a new light on the art and joy of fly fishing.

Robert DeMott is Edwin and Ruth Kennedy Distinguished Professor of English at Ohio University and author or editor of many books, including Steinbeck's Typewriter: Essays on His Art, Brief and Glorious Transit: Prose Poems, Afield: American Writers on Bird Dogs, and Astream: American Writers on Fly Fishing. A flyfisherman for more than half a century, he is a Federation of Fly Fishers certified casting instructor and life member of Trout Unlimited. He lives in Athens, Ohio, with writer and editor Kate Fox.

“This irresistibly readable book is presented as a compilation of entries to a fishing journal kept by Bob DeMott for over a quarter of a century. Those entries track a long, attention-paying self-education in the high art of trout fishing. . . . Along the way, DeMott entertains us with lively prose, deft cameos of guides and fishing pals, elegant depictions of riverscapes, and an erudition in angling literature as capacious yet unpretentious as a thirty-year-old fishing vest. Angling Days: A Fly Fisher’s Journals belongs on the bookshelf of everyone who fishes for trout and values fine writing.” — -Charles Gaines, author of The Next Valley Over

“After over sixty years in the sport Bob DeMott is to me the best trout fisherman I’ve ever met along with Tom McGuane. His expertise shows on every page of Angling Days. Any trout fisherman who can read will want to pick up a copy.” —- -Jim Harrison, author of Dead Man’s Float

"A rich book indeed, the work of a passionate and cultivated writer who can actually fish and sees the place of angling in a thoughtful life. DeMott has a lot to tell us about how the game is played, and what it means. A cultivated, unpretentious and useful contribution to our literature." -Tom McGuane, author of The Longest Silence

"Fishing is Robert DeMott’s chosen metaphor, but one gets the feeling that he could write with grace about any other contest between obligation and escape, and every other test that requires us to be more expansive in our thinking and imagination. We habitually reach for the familiar and the inventive, the useful and transcendent in fishing. In Angling Days DeMott has given us the whole possibles bag." -Marshall Cutchin, publisher of MidCurrent

“Angling Days is a seamless amalgam of Robert DeMott’s erudition and love for trout fishing, a masterwork crafted in and by the eddies and currents of the streams that have coursed through the author’s blood since childhood.”— -Guy de la Valdene, author of On the Water: A Fishing Memoir

"Move over Lyons, Schwiebert, and Traver: fly-fishing has a new master raconteur. Bob Demott shares his "Angling Stories" with his fishing friends, we are lucky to be those friends!" -Craig Mathews, author, conservationist, and fly-shop owner

"What fun to read Bob DeMott’s fishing journal and see the private and public so happily merged...His passions for fishing and literature—and his delight in human quirks and wild places—come through brilliantly in this lovely book."— -Jerry Dennis, author of The River Home and A Place on the Water

“We rarely see the journals of a truly wise and articulate flyfisher, writing so close to a day on the water that we live his choices and sensations, use the flies he used, think his thoughts, learn what the river taught him. DeMott’s Angling Days is that rare treat. It is intimate, brilliant, bone honest, and memorable.” — -Nick Lyons, author of Spring Creek

“Late in Angling Days, Robert DeMott recalls breaking a fly rod for the fourth year in a row. Every fisherman knows this suspicion, but as the rich prose and uncanny sensory accuracy indicate here, the karmic forces of good in the author’s life have far outweighed their opposites. If he never raised another trout, DeMott would know he’s a lucky person—and we readers are glad beneficiaries of his good fortune.” — -Sydney Lea, author of A North Country Life: Tales of Woodsmen, Waters, and Wildlife

“Generous, erudite, and relentlessly readable, like sitting down with the author over burgers and beers to relive a fine shared day of obsessive fly fishing.” — -James R. Babb, editor emeritus, Gray’s Sporting Journal

“Bob DeMott’s Angling Days is a richly textured chronicle of the fly fisher’s life at its most enterprising and provocative. We wait a long time between books that are this satisfying—and this much fun.” — -Paul Schullery, author of The Fishing Life and member of the Fly Fishing Hall of Fame