Page 25 - Panama City Living July-August 2019

BOOK REVIEW
ON THE WATER: A FISHING MEMOIR BY GUY DE LA VALDÈNE
Reviewed by Glenn M. Scott
Glenn, a retired USAF Colonel, lives in Lynn Haven, Florida, with his wife, Janet. He has a BS in conservation (Northern Michigan) and an MS in Natural Science (SUNY). He enjoys restoring British motorcycles, building custom fly rods, fly fishing, and riding his adventure motorcycles, most recently to the Arctic Circle. His most recent reading includes “Grant” by Ron Chernow and “The Great Bridge” by David McCollough, and his taste in books ranges from Scottish, Irish, and American history to the classics, and American humorists from Mark Twain to Carl Hiaasen. Glenn and Janet have eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE FENDER
“On the Water: A Fishing Memoir” (2015) is a wonderful collection of essays inspired by the sporting life
Guy de la Valdène grew up in a castle in France, fishing in a most unconventional manner in the castle moat, unintentionally nearly lighting up the castle on one occasion. As life crashes forward, he explores the Bahamas, the Florida Keys, the Gulf of Mexico, Montana, Idaho, Costa Rica, Iceland, Nova Scotia, Scotland, the Pacific, and the streams of Normandy. Mostly with a fly on the line, he has caught trout all over the world, from warm salt waters to cold rivers and oceans. His fishing buddies have included all the big-name game fishermen of the day: Joe Brooks, Thomas McGuane, Al McClane, and Tom McNally. Oh, the stories he tells!
Finally, he settles on a farm outside Tallahassee, Florida, where he casts plastic worms, poppers, and flies to fat bass and panfish in his lake and cultivates an array of friends with individualistic views of “cultured” norms.
Valdène’s essays reveal a deeper look at the intimacy a person can have with what he loves, a rough intimacy at times. Woven into
his writing are the rhythms of friendships carried through life. Two friends fishing all day, stumbling out of a hangover the next morning right back into the boat and going out again. And again. The details of rigging a line to capture a soft-shelled turtle, and the somewhat off-kilter preparations for cooking said turtle had me laughing and grimacing within the same paragraph. It’s a man’s compelling enjoyment of the simple things in life: fish fries; a cold evening drink on the porch; watching ducks play in the pond; the mist rising off the water in the mornings; tamaracks fading into fall; reflections on the water.
Along with other authors devoted to writing about the outdoors, such as McGuane, Haig- Brown, Leeson, and Gierach to name a few, de la Valdène tells a great fishing story. You laugh and contemplate your own interactions with nature. Close your eyes and dip your toes in the pond; feel the pull of a tarpon leaping into the Gulf sky. You’ll want to read it all again ... or grab your fly rod.
of the author, Guy de la Valdène. As the title indicates, the stories are mostly about fish and fishing, but the smell of cordite lingers in the air as well. The book offers more than memories of a life of fly fishing and pursuing adventure around the world, and more than one man’s intensely personal homage to nature as he observes and pursues tarpon, permit, salmon, and any other fish that will attack a thread-bound wad of
feathers.
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