Habit of Rivers Reflections On Trout Streams And Fly Fishing

The Habit of Rivers is a book about ways of seeing the wonderfully textured world that emanates from a river. 'Despite its reliance on the line,' Leeson writes, 'fly fishing is not linear. It is radial and weblike. At the centre is a rising trout, and millimetres above his nose is the fly. From it, paths trace outward . . . just as far as you wish to go.' In pursuing these paths, Leeson finds everything from salmon, steelhead, and trout, to driftboats, art, insects, gravity, death, philosophy, books, fly tying, and microbreweries - and links them together with an intelligence that is provocative, witty, and illuminating. What emerges is a brilliantly original book about a certain vision of fishing, and fishing as a certain habit of vision, about seasons as spaces and landscapes as times, about rivers that express interior geographies as much as exterior ones. The Habit of Rivers begins with a deep respect for trout and trout streams, and ends in wisdom earned by hard and faithful attention to the natural world.

Ted Leeson’s essays and articles have appeared in Fly Fisherman, Field & Stream, The Utne Reader, Gray’s Sporting Journal, Men’s Journal, and Fly Rod & Reel. He teaches English at Oregon State University in Corvallis.