Acknowledgments

In a book about relationships over many years I owe tremendous thanks to many people. Thanks to Barbara Davenport, who reminisced with me at Ralph’s Fishing Station near the sandy mouth of Long Island’s Mt. Sinai Harbor about her late husband, Ralph, and the old station that flourished from 1961 until 1977 at the muddy back of that harbor. Ralph’s Fishing Station and Caraftis’ Fishing Station in neighboring Port Jefferson represent great legacies of angling and boating culture for many Long Islanders, from the late Herbie Clark to parents taking their children snapper fishing for the first time this summer. Thanks to old Long Island friends, especially Eugene Jones, my angling and cocktail companion for more than thirty-five years.

Prairie praise for the folks at Dakota Wesleyan University, South Dakota, and special thanks to those that assisted with my research: Jennifer Ditmarsch, Birch Hilton, John and Patti Duffy, Joseph and JoAnn Ditta, and Ben Janice, director of Lower Brule Sioux Tribe Department of Wildlife, Fish and Recreation. Gratitude to the many people at Purdue University, Indiana, that cultivated my riverside education, especially Colleen Morton Busch, Rob Davidson, and the anglers Sean McNerney and Willard Greenwood.

The Japan and China years were supported and seasoned by many wonderful people, including Carl Delaney, Jon Trachtman, Yano Tadayoshi, Sugiura Takao, Chen Lin, and Lou Guangqing. I am beholden to Ishikura Naoko for reading and commenting on the Japan chapters. Deep gratitude to my dear friend and continuously generous colleague, Jin Lei, currently an associate professor of Chinese at the College of Charleston, South Carolina.

Thanks to my Oregon fishing buddies: Bob Fultz, Jackson Stalley, Wayne Harrison, John Larison, Mark Weiss, Tom Friesen, Paul Shirkey, Ted Leeson, Peter Betjemann, and the consummate angler-artist Richard Bunse.

Thanks to Celeste Thompson, who keeps the fish flags flying, and to Paul Gentry, who pours tall drinks and ideas.

A wave of continued appreciation for my wonderful colleagues at Western Oregon University, especially those who waded though drafts of this book and offered superb suggestions for revision: Karen Haberman, David Hargreaves, Dennis Eddings, and Curtis Yehnert.

I am truly beholden to the distinguished literary angler-friends who read, commented on, and supported this book, even when light was fading and there were no bites: Marjorie Sandor, James Hepworth, Nick Lyons, Ted Leeson, Margot Page, Charles Rangeley-Wilson, and David James Duncan.

Much of this story is about family, and I offer thanks back through time to my late mother, Marion Spies Hughes, and her sister, my aunt, Lillian Spies. Love and thanks to my father, Charles, who didn’t like to fish but took me fishing and kept our boats afloat. To my brother, David, a cherished angling friend and supporter.

And finally and most powerfully, an ocean of thanks to my closest reader, best friend, wife, and lover, Chloë—with you I rise and jump.

Research for this project was made possible through a Faculty Development Award from Western Oregon University.

Some parts of this book first appeared in slightly different form in Harvard Review, Japan Quarterly, Adventures NW, Marine Quarterly, and in the introduction to Fishing Stories from Knopf’s Everyman’s Library.