September 30, 1991
A wise sportsperson writes about the fishing he or she knows: what Raymond knows best is fly-fishing the rivers of the Pacific Northwest. This time it's for steelhead, a singular sea-migrating Western trout species the color of worn silverplate. After 25 seasons on such rivers as the Sauk, the Stillaguamish and the Green, Raymond ( Kamloops ) is able to make of fly-fishing for steelhead a metaphor for all of angling's particular truths and joys. Readers will be drawn upriver by fine strokes of description of the waterways and the fishing--``The steelhead bolted out of the slot and into the quiet water of an upstream pool, then jumped high, throwing spats of silver spray''--and by Raymond's magnetic sense of place in steelhead country. Add this book to the shelf of choice regional outdoors writing from the Pacific Northwest. Drawings not seen by PW.