James R. Babb

James R. Babb retired last year after eighteen years as editor of Gray’s Sporting Journal. The author of River Music, Crosscurrents, and Fly-Fishin’ Fool, he was born and raised in the East Tennessee hills and for the past forty-five years has lived in Maine, where he has variously worked as a commercial lobster fisherman, a truck driver, a boatyard worker, a reporter, an essayist, and a book editor.

Author Articles

Book Excerpt: "Fish Camp"

It occurred to me, while banging nails into the new screened porch we were building for Jim Lepage’s camp up on Maine’s Caribou Lake, that the desire for a little place near the water where we can get away from it all is a powerful driver of human behavior. These days, with so many of us living in cities and suburbs and enduring tedious commutes to jobs...

"Sudden Agility"

When I’se in trouble, scare, or torment, I does but one thing, and that’s unresistable, unequalled, and durned-fast runnin. I just keeps at it till I gits comfort. — George Washington Harris, Sut Lovingood REMEMBER WHEN Leave It to Beaver was cutting-edge TV and not a sociological anachronism on Nick at Night? When Fury was both a heartwarming TV show...