Individual taste in books varies as much as the favorite rod or fly.  With that in mind, we hope to review books and videos from the ever-growing fly fishing world, and share them with you.  Books will be the best of all worlds, new and old.  Many of the old books are now available in reprint, and the wisdom contained is timely today.  Others can be found in second-hand book stores, or by mail order dealers. As we find videos we feel are outstanding they will be included. Be assured, reviews are based on what we have actually read, and due to that fact, may not appear weekly.
November 12th, 2001

The Moon Pulled Up An Acre of Bass

By Peter Kasminsky
 Published by Hyperion

Reviewed by Charlie Place

The Moon Pulled Up an Acre of Bass
When Peter Kasminsky's book came across my desk, my life had suddenly gotten all too hectic. I was busy with family issues and I was traveling for work more than usual, plus I had some short fishing trips scheduled. So I read The Moon Pulled Up an Acre Of Bass in hotel rooms, cars, hospital rooms and fishing cabins. It was both comforting and thrilling to get lost in its pages.

So what I'm saying is that this book got what you might call a traveling review. While in Vermont on a four-day fishing trip, I showed it to my friend Dick Heffernon. After he read a few pages, I noticed that the book was resting on Dick's lap and he was sort of staring at the cabin walls. I asked him how he liked the book so far. He looked at me and said, "He makes me feel like I'm there . . .We got to go to Montauk."

There's a lot packed into a two hundred and forty-four page book. Peter intermingles some history of Montauk Point, stories of killer hurricanes and the tragedy of sinking ships into an account of his six-week fishing adventure on Montauk. There's also plenty of exciting fishing for big stripers, big blues and the finicky, false albacore. There's talk of some crazy, wet suit fisherman and some narrow escapes, along with several real life characters like Amanda, fishing guide and andscaper. And good places to drink coffee like the Crabby Cowboy.

You should probably read The Moon Pulled Up An Acre Of Bass twice. Once for the enjoyment of it, and the second time for the fishing information that it provides about Montauk. There are some first-class tips on saltwater fishing, boating and casting mixed into the stories too. And the prose, well, "We wait. The bass come closer. I see the ocean darken. Then the bass rise. It is as if a piece of the world has come alive --- mysterious as sex, wet as a wound. In fairy tales, trees speak, mountains roar, the skies reveal spirits flying among the clouds. I don't believe in magic, but if I did it would feel something like this."

Should you buy it? I've already bought one copy to give as a birthday present to a fishing buddy. And now that Christmas is coming fast I have another person in mind. Sure, go ahead, pick up a copy and enjoy. ~ Charlie

The Moon Pulled Up An Acre Of Bass
 244 pages
6" x 8 1/2"
Hardcover $23.95 U.S.
ISBN 0-7868-6769-8
Published by Hyperion, 77 W 66th Street, New York, New York 10023-6298

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