By: Sundial
Salmon do not care about the arbitrary human boundaries cut by nations, wild salmon travel where they please and Guido Rahr understood this. This story follows the life of Guido Rahr, a conservationist and world-class fly fisherman from the observations and discussions he had with his cousin, the author Tucker Malarkey. This book takes you around the animal world from reptiles to Trout to Salmon in the US to Taimen, Deep in the Russian southeast and through some of the most wild rivers in the world. This book tells of overcomming difference’s, bravery, a change made, and connections forged between unexpected places and people.
The book starts following the early childhood and teenage years of the main character Guido. Born into a wealthy family with a grandfather who had a retreat on the Deschutes, A river in the high desert of Oregon, he grew up around nature. He is introduced early in the book as a strange child who would rather spend his time catching poisonous snakes, and he made that very clear through his struggles focusing on school. This book tells of Guido as a boy who finds nature teaching him more than the school system, and even with support from his family, struggled in school. While he struggle at starting his career, after many failures and lots of time spent fly fishing instead of doing homework, he found himself in conservation and that is where he would stay.
This book was fascinating because rather than being written like some of the more straightforward nonfiction books or an inspirational memoir it was a narrative biography of a person that most people probably have never heard of. It had an aura of adventure that exuded from the stories of Guito, from his childhood catching snakes to his adult years catching Trophy Taimen. This book was interesting for another reason and that is his stories from the Russian Far East. Political tensions between Americans and Russians have been a part of each country since the mid-1900s so hearing of his adventures both through the Russian social and political landscape as well as the physical one was extremely engaging.
I learned so much about salmon from this book but also about fly fishing, trout, Steelhead, and Siberian Taiman. It taught me about the work of conservationists and more specifically the wild salmon center. I learned about these fish in between the thrilling story of Guito and by the end of the book I felt comfortable writing about the 6 (Some think 7) types of salmon and about the wild salmon center and its work to create Strongholds of salmon not only in America but also in Russia. I truly have nothing negative to say about this book and enjoyed the way the author writes about each of the different topics they covered. I think that for people interested in marine biology, fisheries, conservation, and any type of fishing this would be the perfect book for you, but for all other people its was an entertaining book full of adventure and suspense! Overall, I rated this book a 5 out of 5.
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