JOE AND ME

Sweet, innocent, if not particularly artful, recollections of fishing with a local master. At the age of 15, Prosek (Trout: An Illustrated History, not reviewed) got caught poaching, but he also got a second chance and a lesson in life from the ranger who bagged him: Joe Haines. Prosek was nobody's fool even at that vulnerable age—at least as he remembers it seven years later—but he understood that he had plenty to learn from the seasoned fisherman. Haines sensed that Prosek was a kindred angling spirit, so he brought him to small private ponds and streams, beachside for stripers, to the salmon run at Pulaski, to ice-fishing spots, imparting a notion of how to be an outdoorsman with style. Casting a wider net, Haines took Prosek crabbing, showed him how to butcher a bull, took him to a club to hunt for pheasant, hand-fashioned fishing weights with him. The lessons were not just about secret glory holes, though, but about what it means to be tried-and-true; about generosity, responsibility, humor, curiosity, appreciation; about having a warm heart and doing the right thing. Prosek can be a tad priggish (crude jokes offend him), and the writing displays a callowness that fails to wring from a couple of the narratives the power they harbor; this is particularly evident in a story about fishing a lake from which a drowned boy is being pulled. Much of the book is engaging, though, as Prosek describes for us a lost world of sportsfolk—relaxed, comradely, reflective, perceptive—from which he wisely decides to take his cues. Emanating from the pages is a genuine fondness the young man and his elder have for each other's company. Prosek, now a senior at Yale, may well be on his way to becoming a fine writer of the outdoors. (color paintings by the author, not seen)