Once again courtesy of Skyhorse Publishing, we have a very interesting book to give away to a lucky Chi Wulff compadre – Maxine Atherton’s The Fly Fisher and the River.
The name Atherton should ring a bell for fly fishing literature enthusiasts, we’ve just today given away a copy of Maxine’s husband’s book The Fly and the Fish.
Like her husband, Maxine was a gifted artist and in fact met her future (and rather famous) artist spouse John Atherton at the San Francisco Art Institute (then the California School of Fine Arts) before moving to NYC.
Again like her husband, she was a gifted lifelong angler, having been introduced to fishing by her father; she became something of a fly fishing prodigy in her day, fishing very actively and widely with her husband, something that was all but unheard for a woman at that time.
Her own writings, and other works written about her, confirmed her hard-earned credibility in the fly fishing world, and she was, for the day, a fairly radical environmentalist and loved exploring new fly fishing destinations and cultures.
After husband John’s untimely death on the Miramichi in New Brunswick in 1952, Maxine eventually sojourned on an extended fly fishing expedition to France and Spain and later went on to travel extensively until the early 1990s.
She settled in Manchester, VT, the home of Orvis, published Every Sportsman’s Cookbook in 1962, and wrote this memoir over a number of years (later edited by her granddaughter Catherine Varchaver, the senior stewardship officer at the World Wildlife Fund’s headquarters in DC).
It’s a fascinating read and provides insights into a woman’s view of the fly fishing world you’ll never hear or read today (what a great gift idea for the lady fisher in your life, gentlemen…).
DRAWING CLOSED – this one is on its way to Nora in PA.
Once again we have a brand-spanking-new, never-opened-a-crack, untouched copy to give away. Fire an email here with Fly Fisher and the River in the subject line and your mailing address; we’ll draw for this one Monday morning, 31 July, at 0900.
