West with the Rise

Book excerpt: "It is to fly-fishing that Barilla turns for answers. No one would mistake the modern world he travels through for that of the river-going Huck Finn: Barilla drives past strip malls, falls asleep to Dirty Harry playing on his motel-room television, and reads in a trout magazine of a familiar stream now degraded by urban sprawl. But then, as one fishing shop proprietor observes, "No place is what it was." And along his way, the author encounters many settings of uncommon beauty, from Yellow Breeches Creek in Pennsylvania to the Grand Deschutes River in Oregon, each with a singular fishing experience to offer."--Jacket.