The Believer: A Year In the Fly Fishing Life

In The Optimist, David Coggins tackled the techniques of fly-fishing and meditated on its virtues, recounting his triumphs and failures. Now, in The Believer, he deftly mixes travel, local cultures, further fishing challenges (some knee-buckling in their disappointment), and details his own experience as life and love crowd his time to fish. Self-consciously—and self-deprecatingly—Coggins embarks on seven far-flung fishing voyages, away from screens and social media, not answering his phone, and reveling in humanity’s undying yearning for a quest, for the rituals and rites of passage that mark transition.

For Coggins, these journeys—to Norway, Scotland, Spain, Cuba, and Argentina, as well as road trips to Wyoming, Tennessee, and the Catskills—not only showcase his skill as an angler but also signal the end of his fly-fishing youth. But that doesn’t mean that Coggins will sell all his rods and hang up his hat; rather, his relationship with his fly-fishing obsession will evolve—especially if he can catch an elusive salmon or a ferociously strong tarpon or the mercurial permit.

The Believer is a humble, humorous call for the journey that is as enriching as the destination, where the search for greater self-awareness leads to patience, observation, and endurance. And, since this is fly-fishing, after all, there’s always the possibility of abject failure and leaping, glorious reward. Wry, entertaining, thoughtful, and relatable, The Believer is “a wonderful example of how well angling can weave us into the world” (Gray’s Sporting Journal) and will hook both anglers and non-anglers alike.

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