OPENING DAY And Other Neuroses

Lightly entertaining, expertly informative essays on fishing, by mystery-writer (the Brad Coyne series) Tapply. Tapply's passion for the sport--especially fly-fishing--is evident in these pieces, most reprinted from Field & Stream Magazine. But that enthusiasm becomes lost in what at times seems little more than a running commentary on equipment and the delicate art of fly-tying. Tapply goes fishing from Walden Pond to the Little Big Horn, from the shores of Belize to the Connecticut River, and catches everything from large-mouth bass to giant tarpon. His favorite prey, though, is trout--both rainbow and brown. Despite fond recollections of youthful bait-and-hook days, he unabashedly expresses a fly-fisherman's chauvinism: ""When I'm having my way, I fish for trout. With flies. When I can't do that, I fish for something else with flies."" Tapply names himself a willing victim of ""Depth Wish"": walking out into the stream so far to catch the fish that the water rises above his waders; and of ""The Fish-Till-You-Puke Syndrome"": fishing from before daybreak until nearly midnight every day of one's two-week vacation. A respectable catch, but with its emphasis on gear and technique, likely to hook only avid fishing fans.