Headwaters: The Adventures, Obsession, and Evolution of a Fly Fisherman
Christmas Island. The Russian Arctic. Argentine Patagonia. Japan. Cuba. British Columbia. Dylan Tomine takes us to the far reaches of the planet in search of fish and adventure, with keen insight, a strong stomach and plenty of laughs along the way. Closer to home, he wades deeper into his beloved steelhead rivers of the Pacific Northwest and the politics of saving them. Tomine celebrates the joy—and pain—of exploration, fatherhood and the comforts of home waters from a vantage point well off the beaten path. Headwaters traces the evolution of a lifelong angler’s priorities from fishing to the survival of the fish themselves. It is a book of remarkable obsession, environmental awareness shaped by experience, and hope for the future.
Dylan Tomine is a father, writer, conservation advocate and recovering sink tip addict, not necessarily in that order. His book, Closer to the Ground: An Outdoor Family’s Year on the Water, in the Woods and at the Table, was a National Outdoor Book Award honorable mention. He is also a producer of the feature-length documentary, Artifishal, which has been watched by more than 3.5 million viewers. He lives in Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Praise:
“Early on in this wonderful collection, Dylan Tomine says he was “born to fish.” He was obviously born to write, too. Headwaters exemplifies the very best in angling literature, with prose that is, at various times, hilarious, profound and mournful. The book makes you fight simultaneous urges—Grab a rod and go? Or keep your butt in the chair and continue reading? You win either way.” –– Monte Burke, author of Saban and Lords of the Fly
“A someone who’s spent the bulk of his life in pursuit of some fish or another I wish I’d had this book much sooner, to enjoy, yes, but also as a source of validation for a way of living, a talisman to hold up against those with the audacity to suggest that there is some other, greater, more important activity to pursue. Reading Dylan Tomine on fishing is a rare opportunity to glimpse the essential, but often hard to pin down, reason so many of us return again and again to cast our hope into the water.” — Callan Wink, author of Dog Run Moon and August
“Headwaters is a book to reach for when you want to go fishing but can’t. It’s rich with the pleasures of angling: exploration, youthful obsession let off its leash, awe before fleeting beauty. In prose as fertile as a beaver pond, Tomine pays homage to the scaly abundance that still swam the rivers of the Pacific Northwest during the 1990s, and he bears witness to the steep decline in that abundance over the years since. Yes, this is a book that charts a fishing life, one man’s movement from angling bum to fish conservationist, but it’s more than that. Like a line cast over shadowed water, these pages come taut with hope for what happens next.” — John Larison, author of Whiskey When We’re Dry
