Every. Cast.: Stories from a Deeply Hooked Angler

Every Cast - Stephen Sautner’s New Book Chronicles the Obsession of Angling

From trout to bonefish to striped bass, more than 60 stories written by a master storyteller

For more than three decades, Stephen Sautner has quietly pursued a fishing addiction while writing about it for The New York Times, The FlyFish Journal, The Drake, Hatch, Anglers Journal, Patagonia, and other publications. His latest book, Every Cast: Stories from a Deeply Hooked Angler gathers more than 60 essays, blending previously published work with more than a dozen new stories. Whether fly fishing for trout, salmon, or bonefish, surfcasting for striped bass, ice fishing for perch, or remembering lost fishing friends, Sautner’s insightful, sometimes poignant, and often humorous observations underscore what Thoreau meant when he wrote: ＂Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.＂

Sautner freely embraces his compulsion. As he writes in the book’s introduction: ＂They are out there, right now, casting in plain view. . . These are the fish-junkies--angling’s version of meth heads. They are forever chasing the dopamine jolt that comes from the perfect cast, the perfect rise, the perfect release. The perfect . . . I know because I am one of them.＂

The far-reaching stories in Every Cast include casting for wild trout in the familiar Catskill Mountains--the birthplace of American fly fishing--to more exotic locations such as the Alaskan backcountry, Canadian Rockies, and even the Panama Canal. Sautner casts and writes with equal enthusiasm, whether stalking bonefish on a lonely Bahamian flat or chasing schools of striped bass on a beach crowded with scores of his fellow anglers. His stories are not only about angling adventure, but also what can happen between casts: dealing with a surly fishing guide, insect hatches declining on a favorite stream, even witnessing a drowning on a river.

The essays in Every Cast will resonate not only with fellow anglers, but anyone who appreciates well-crafted writing by a master storyteller.

Ever since he saw his older brother lose an enormous summer flounder off a dock at the New Jersey Shore when he was twelve years old, Stephen Sautner has been trying to catch fish. Any fish. This has led him to the Falkland Islands, where he cast for sea trout next to an active minefield, to the Zambezi River, where three-ton elephants guarded pools filled with tiger fish and Nile crocodiles. In 2007, he edited Upriver and Downstream, an anthology of fishing stories from the ＂Outdoors＂ column of The New York Times, and has been an active contributor to the column since 1994. His stories have also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Fly Rod & Reel, Wildlife Conservation, and Underwater Naturalist.

Along with Sautner’s fifteen years of contributing to the NY Times, he is also the director of communications for the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo, where he publicizes the Society’s conservation programs. He is the author of Fish On, Fish Off, Upriver and Downstream, and A Cast in the Woods.