Nick Lyons, one time professor of English turned fishing publisher, is well known in the States for his columns in periodicals as diverse as the New York Times and Fly Fisherman. Nick’s hallmark is autumnal prose, combined with quiet humour. The result is always readable, and “The Seasonable Angler” is no exception.

The book was first published in 1970, and this review is of the subsequent paperback eidtion. As a sometimes hilarious account of a fisherman’s attempts to reconcile his obsession with his family, it is surely worth a read. This is an evocation of a man’s travel from one boyhood to another; it starts with his own introduction to fishing, and ends with his son’s first fish. The background is the magical Catskills, and its legendary rivers: the Willowemoc, the Beaverkill and the Neversink.

Some of the stories here are as good as anything you are ever likely to read: sub-zero temperatures in “The Lure of Opening Day”; the perils of combining childcare with fly fishing in “Family Interlude”; and best of all, the outing with the enigmatic Mr. Hawkes in “Mecca”.