Searching for Home Waters, by Michael K. Steinberg

If you are a brook trout fisherman, you will appreciate the work Michael Steinberg has put into his wonderful book, Searching for Home Waters. The subtitle, A Brook Trout Pilgrimage, is an apt description as the book chronicles Steinberg’s travels from Georgia to Labrador. I encourage you to get a hard copy. The beautiful original watercolors by Karen Talbot and original drawings by Fredrick Steinberg alone make it worth the money.

I’ve hopscotched around it a bit; reading of his travels in Tennessee, Virginia, New Hampshire and Maine, places I have spent a good part of my life fishing. In each of these chapters I found he had fished places and visited with people I knew well, adding both authenticity and validity to his work.

These are more than “I went fishing here” stories, although they are captivating in their own right. Steinberg shares his observations of the environmental and ill-conceived resource management impacts that continue to threaten this splendid fish; what he characterizes as an “invisible poisoning.” He also sounds a warning about the increasing impact of industrial recreation and poorly planned tourism.

I look forward to continuing my journey through Searching for Home Waters. I expect I will recall more fond memories, learn about some new water and reinforce my strong desire to conserve and protect this fish that has meant so much to me for all my life.

Cover photo-University of Georgia Press