Every Cast – Stephen Sautner’s New Book Chronicles the Obsession of Angling

From trout to bonefish to striped bass, more than 60 stories written by a master storyteller

For more than three decades, Stephen Sautner has quietly pursued a fishing addiction while writing about it for The New York Times,The FlyFish Journal, The Drake, Hatch, Anglers Journal, Patagonia, and other publications. His latest book, Every Cast: Stories from a Deeply Hooked Angler gathers more than 60 essays, blending previously published work with more than a dozen new stories. Whether fly fishing for trout, salmon, or bonefish, surfcasting for striped bass, ice fishing for perch, or remembering lost fishing friends, Sautner’s insightful, sometimes poignant, and often humorous observations underscore what Thoreau meant when he wrote: “Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”

Sautner freely embraces his compulsion. As he writes in the book’s introduction: “They are out there, right now, casting in plain view. . . These are the fish-junkies—angling’s version of meth heads. They are forever chasing the dopamine jolt that comes from the perfect cast, the perfect rise, the perfect release. The perfect . . . I know because I am one of them.”

The far-reaching stories in Every Cast include casting for wild trout in the familiar Catskill Mountains—the birthplace of American fly fishing—to more exotic locations such as the Alaskan backcountry, Canadian Rockies, and even the Panama Canal. Sautner casts and writes with equal enthusiasm, whether stalking bonefish on a lonely Bahamian flat or chasing schools of striped bass on a beach crowded with scores of his fellow anglers. His stories are not only about angling adventure, but also what can happen between casts: dealing with a surly fishing guide, insect hatches declining on a favorite stream, even witnessing a drowning on a river.

The essays in Every Cast will resonate not only with fellow anglers, but anyone who appreciates well-crafted writing by a master storyteller.   
 

Stephen Sautner is the author of the acclaimed Fish On, Fish Off and A Cast in the Woods, and edited Upriver and Downstream, a collection of “Outdoors” columns from The New York Times. He continues to write for various angling publications between casts.

Introduction

I. Sweet

Carpe May 12th

Gone Trout Fishing with Some Clown

When Things Go Right

Alone on a Catskill Headwater

Trash Talking Trout

River of Sinners

The Bomber and the Brook Trout

Rocking the Eastern Stonefly Hatch

Halftime at the Cabin

II. In Home Waters

Bluelining Dirty Jersey

Why I Dig Stockers

A Winter Afternoon

The Giving Stump

Suckers in a Pool

The Neighborhood Brookie

Tales from the Dark Side

III. Between Casts

It’s Time for a Slow Fish Movement

Dude, Where’s My Hatch?

Mountain Badass

Two Flies

One Angler’s Junk

Low Water

IV. Shad and Friends

Casting for Sapidissima

The Mid-March Delaware Watershed Slam

April Madness

The Boys and Bass of Summer

Bass in the Nick of Time

The Fish of 43 Casts

Anglers of Winter, Chisel in Hand

V. Salty

Waiting for Albert

The Surfmen of Montauk

Queens Bluefish are Kings

We’ll Always Have Herring

The Surf Kings of the Jersey Shore

Holy Mackerel, It’s Another Herring

Back in Block

Block and Blue

Block Seal’s and a Surfcaster’s Lament

VI. Chasing the Blitz

 The De-Evolution of an Angler 

A November Blitz

Three Fishing Journal Entries

A Blitz in Four Acts

Max and Me

The Kid’s First Striper

Sweeps Week

We are Gulls

VII. With Rod Tube in Hand

A Port of Call Snags an Angler

Fishing in the Panama Canal is Kind of Weird

Some Casts in Gated Florida

A Singular Red

Phoneless on a Flat

A Char by any Other Name

Faith and Time and Atlantic Salmon

Pile of Fish

Discovering Limits on an Alaskan Stream

VIII. Final Casts

Eric and the Jetty

The Drowning

The Ghost of Dave Palmer

Dead Stuff in the Water

An Island in Time

Acknowledgements