Salvelinus fontinalis' North American range (the brook trout also swims South America and Europe) has shrunk as Homo sapiens' range has expanded. Karas explores brook-trout history and speculates about its uncertain future. He has obviously taken a lot of time researching old brook-trout stories, myths, and legends; for example, Daniel Webster was at one time reputed to have caught the largest brook trout ever, a 14.5-pound monster (Karas debunks this story and makes some informed guesses as to who actually caught it, if indeed it ever existed). He does not, however, provide basic fishing advice. Yet if you seek a definitive resource on brook trout, search no further; indeed, so encyclopedic is it that even brook-trout devotees shouldn't expect to read the whole thing at one go. Jon Kartman
From Kirkus Reviews
The much maligned brook trout gets star billing in this encyclopedic, readable study of Salvelinus fontinalis from Newsday outdoor columnist Karas. Many anglers give the brook trout a bum rap, considering it an inferior quarry to the wily, fighting browns and rainbows. But there is also a dedicated band of brook trout fanciers, who find in this exquisite fish--decked out in black and olive, rose and pearl, accessorized with light green shading to yellow squiggles and vermilion dots haloed in powder blue--the very stuff of our continent's angling past, a synecdoche testifying to clear, cold, pure waters, to a life pristine and unpretentious. Karas is decidedly in the latter group, his book a labor of love: ``Our relationship with this unique fish has never been fully documented or evaluated,'' he writes. It has been now. Karas goes back into the mists of paleoichthyology to get a handle on beginnings; charts distribution in post-glacial times; scrutinizes species, subspecies, strains (the brook isn't a trout but a char); offloads a bargeful of fish stories. The author devotes the majority of the book to the history of brook trout fishing in New York and Canada, from remote headwaters to rivers the mention of which--Nipigon and Minipi and Ashuanipi--get brook-trouters in a lather; and closes with the rude effects of acid rain on wild trout waters, this after logging and mining had already trashed the habitat. This is the kind of book anglers long for: smartly written, free of hyperbole, full of obscure historical tidbits, laced with snatches from old diaries and letters, and enticingly informative (from mere clues to gift-horse treats) on how and where to fish for wild brook trout today. Angling literature, burdened as it is by overproduction, has every reason to celebrate Karas's brook trout encomium. (color and b&w photos and illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
From the Back Cover
North America has had a four-hundred-year love affair with the brook trout - Salvelinus fontinalis - its great native trout. And now Nick Karas offers the first major profile of this most beautiful of gamefish. Brook Trout is a thorough look at the history, biology, and angling possibilities of the fish most fishermen affectionately call the brookie. Through the eyes of a trained ichthyologist, Karas explores the brook trout's biology and the events that led to its evolution and distribution. He unravels the controversies surrounding the two largest brook trout ever taken. But the core of this book is the fishery: its past status, current condition, and future. And because the history of brook-trout fishing is inseparable from the history of American fishing, Karas follows the development of the rods, reels, lines, lures, and flies that evolved as anglers continued their fascination with this great gamefish. (6 1/4 X 9 1/4, 396 pages, color photos, b&w photos, maps, illustrations, charts)
About the Author
James R. Babb is the author of three books on angling and fly-fishing, Cross Currents: A Fly Fisher's Progress, River Music: A Fly Fisher's Four Seasons, and Fly Fishin' Fool: The Adventures, Misadventures, and Outright Idiocies of a Compulsive Angler. He is also editor emeritus of Gray's Sporting Journal. Babb lives in midcoast Maine.
