Notes on Fishing

Notes on Fishing was Sergei Aksakov's first book and Russia's first angling treatise. It presents a Russian gentleman's observations on the fishing tackle, angling techniques, and fish species he came to know during five decades of adventure-filled fishing in the vast Russian steppe and the environs of Moscow. But it is goes beyond a mere discourse on angling, offering philosophical, literary, linguistic, ethnographic, biological, and conservationist observations. Aksakov has imbued his notes with a deep fondness for the land and an expertly conveyed atmosphere of personal and national nostalgia.

"In Thomas Hodge's beautiful translation, Aksakov brings the same kind of urbanity and insight to rivers, fish, and fishing that Russia's great nineteenth-century novelists brought to her aristocracy, families, misfits, soldiers, and lovers. This book is a classic." --David James Duncan, author of The River Why and The Brothers K