A Jerk on One End: Reflections of a Mediocre Fisherman

Robert Hughes might rightly self-nominate as a mediocre fisherman. This has never applied to his writing. Herein is brace of reflections, which,perhaps surprisingly, seams with his sensitive, morally driven, art-criticism. The art of trout fishing was taught him by his father whose injunction to play fair and catch and feed your and yourself only, informs Hughes's abhorrence of the ravaging of world fish stocks in the final chapter. Fishing with his father taught him the craft of handling time, to subvert impatience and its fast track from desire to satisfaction. You move at fish tempo. On the trout trail you learn to observe detail in nature; the near abstract perfection of streams and so on. And then the reward of savoring their deep pinkish flesh - delicious and sacramental from its diet of crayfish. He pauses on the evolution of fishing literature, attitudes to it, the fashions for different breeds, the Christian church's symbolic embrace of its image, the snobbery of the C18th English gentry during the transforming period of the Industrial Revolution and the commensurate rise of fishing as a sport. Hughes saves his lathering best for the greed of commercial fishing and our immunity to the destruction of our oceans, primed as we are, at school with images of Nature as a land-based zoo of the warm-blooded, air breathers. He rails against the teaching of his Christian school masters, the Genesis account of God setting man in dominion over the earth and its creatures - a destructive myth. Moderation and temperance are Hughes's rejoinders. This slim volume is no less important than his insights about the visual arts. Funny and informative and about an hour of liesurely reading while floating in your 'tinny', with one eye on the end of your line.

Robert Hughes is incapable of being frivolous, even when he is writing what appears at first glance to be a light-hearted memoir about his experiences as a fisherman. There's that, of course, with funny stories about his boyhood in Australia, but the book is much more too. It is a history lesson, as well as a brooding meditation on loss, greed, gluttony and all the other deadly sins whose names escape me. As always, Hughes is good for a laugh too. The book left me wishing I'd been a fisherman as a youth and not just a fish consumer in my middle age. Conversely, given the harrowing account of the abuse the human species has done to the oceans and its species, it made me to simply avoid eating fish for the rest of my life.

Here is a great little book worth reading. Start with a terrific title and follow with a witty, intelligent book in which there are no wasted words and which does not ever seem "interminable" and you've got a great combination. Highly recommended for the fisherman and anyone else in your family.

As an artist, I've found inspiration time and again in Robert Hughes'books and the American Visions series. As a third-generation Floridian growing up on the Hillsborough River, I instinctively came by an appreciation of both the mystique of the water and the way fishing linked me to it. As a mostly-vegetarian who still succumbs to seafood, I feel some sense of guilt and sadness for the realities of the commercial fishing industry. This is a poignant and amusing little book, and a clarion call to those who don't give much thought to where their salmon filet came from. Robert Hughes is an inspired writer; this book demonstrates how his holistic take on cultural history translates into wonderful insights in seemingly disparate fields. This is a book I'll re-read every summer!

I bought this for my 19 year old son who has a passion for fishing. I'll admit it, I just don't understand the allure. I picked it up one night and was caught up in the storytelling. there is a bit of fishing history and plenty of fish stories. I still don't understand fishing, but found this brief book a good read.