The Secret Lives of Fishermen is Jim Dean's second book of
essays celebrating wild places, rural traditions, and the pleasures
and often humorous frustrations of fishing, hunting, hiking, and
camping--or, as Dean might put it, "messing around" outdoors. It
combines essays originally published in his monthly "Our Natural
Heritage" column in
Wildlife in North Carolina with longer
pieces that appeared in other magazines. These forty-six engaging
essays are arranged in a loose chronicle of the sporting year, but
they seldom follow predictable routes. From a whimsical story about
discovering live wood ducks in a cabin stove to a poignant memoir
of summers spent in a remote riverside shack, all of the pieces are
bound by a conviction that our resources and time are limited and
our finest memories are shared.
The title notwithstanding, not all of the essays in
The Secret
Lives of Fishermen are about fishing, nor are readers likely to
discover any shocking secrets--unless they are surprised to learn
that fishermen and hunters have myriad interests and seldom measure
success by the number of fish caught or game bagged.