Here are 13 handsome essays filled with Gierach's signature humor. From the wispy end of a trout leader to the brute effort of catching pike on a fly rod ("It reminds me of stock car racing"); from the wonder and buffoonery of tying your own flies to a madcap brush with an invisible bear; The View from Rat Lake examines man in nature, nature in man, and the high and low comedy that occasionally overcomes even the best-planned fishing trip. . On angling's raison d'etre: "One of the things we truly fish for [is] an occasion for self-congratulation." . On no-kill moralists: "In every catch-and-release fisherman's past there is an old black frying pan."

On dry-fly snobs: "We ...believe that a 12-inch trout caught on a dry fly is four inches longer than a 12-inch trout caught on a nymph or streamer:' These and more are the matters at hand for John Gierach as he explores fast-falling water, peculiar men, and the agony of going fishless.