Description: 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.
Review Quotes: "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