Fishing Giants and
Other Men of Derring-Do

by Robert H. Boyle.
The Lyons Press 240 pp., $22.95, hardcover.
 ISBN 1-58574-423-9.
www.lyonspress.com

Obsession Finds a Voice

These ingenious profiles of eccentric individuals provide an entertaining look into the lives of men who live their passion.If a little humor and some eccentric characters are what you're looking for in your time away from the stream, the search is over. Robert H. Boyle's Fishing Giants and Other Men of Derring-Do: Amazing Tales of Extraordinary Sportsmen, released earlier this year by the Lyons Press, has a little of everything for the technique-weary angler.

There are no cumbersome descriptions of rigs or leader lengths, no detailed diagrams of newfound techniques, and certainly no long-held watery secrets dispensed, but Boyle does go to great lengths to entertain, aided in no small part by the irregular cast of characters he profiles in the twenty essays. Fly-tiers Harry Darbee and John Betts, renowned chef and fisherman Joe Hyde, "the most eccentric man in America"-Chanler Chapman, and famed Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov are just a few of the personalities brought to life here, alongside their passions. This is a fishing book about people that love to fish, nothing more and nothing less.

Some of those portrayed, like Jack Gartside, who tied flies on a vise attached to the steering wheel of his Boston cab between fares, are absolutely obsessed with what always began as a mere recreation. In other essays-like one where Boyle tries to pen literary giant James Joyce as an angling fanatic, using the oft-investigated Finnegans Wake as his proof-the humor and general delight lies in the material itself.

Boyle is a master of the profile, having honed his skills over five decades of outdoor writing, and the stories chosen for this volume, most of which appeared in Sports Illustrated over the last thirty years, represent the very best of his work. The characters he sketches, from Zane Grey to legendary boxing trainer Cus D'Amato, are intriguing at their worst and downright fascinating the rest of the time.
Boyle deftly draws a portrait of Lefty Kreh, whom he labels one of the best light-tackle fisherman ever, while delivering the genesis of a lifetime spent on the water, and the breaks that got him there. Another highlight is surely the profile of unabashed poacher Art Broadie.

Broadie-who came up with his own now-infamous moniker, the Black Ghost-spent his days and nights just 35 miles north of New York City, but hunted and fished with the regularity of a man living in a cabin near Talkeetna, regardless of any fish and game laws or no-trespassing signs. Those he regarded as mere hindrances. Poaching was handed down through the generations in the Broadie family, and Boyle is there to let us in on it all.

The book draws much of its strength from the anecdotes, and Boyle is secure enough in his talents as a writer to let them stand on their own. One of the best is when the Black Ghost himself related his penchant for finding "hidey-holes" on every estate in the area, which lead to him observing a game warden (who was staking out an area Broadie was suspected to be illegally hunting for deer) taking down his own big muley, out of season of course.

In the end, this collection of essays-often irreverent, always light-hearted and leisurely-is perfect for taming the boredom and everyday humdrum that often lies between our own trips into the outdoors. For readers interested in fishing and the outdoors, but perhaps already filled to the gills with technical information, Fishing Giants and Other Men of Derring-Do is an ideal alternative.