MANY FLY FISHERS cut their teeth on rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Therefore, to read a new history of that fish is both intriguing and unnerving, particularly when the author calls those fish “entirely synthetic.” But Anders Halverson’s An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World (Yale University Press, 2010), is hardly a criticism of the fish or the people who love to fish for them. Instead, it is a tale of how well intended programs have gone utterly wrong, putting the treasures of trout anglers at risk, while simultaneously spreading the joy of trout fishing around the globe.

HOW CAN picking up trash be fun? Make it a contest... even a fishing contest. Such a competition doesn’t have to be sponsored by a big organization or offer expensive prizes.

"AMONG THE HALF DOZEN or so standard questions fly fishers eventually get around to asking each other is, What's your favorite fish? Some say your answer to that will be deeply revealing — exposing you as a covert aristocrat if it's Atlantic salmon, a closet bubba if it's largemouth bass, or whatever — while others just think it might be interesting, but sooner or later, in one way or another, the question comes up."