Rating: 
Summary: The definitive work on the American shad
Review: "It has not been long since the Florida peninsula was under water. Covered with sand, it is a limestone platform - like the Bahamas platform, the Yucatan platform. Now that it is up in the air, its topography and drainage patterns are somewhat bizarre. For example, it has an east-west divide and a north-south divide. The shorter one crosses the peninsula at the latitude of Tampa Bay. The longer divide, running down the axis of the peninsula, is known locally as the Ridge. Its high domains - the Apennines of Florida - rise to an altitude of two hundred and forty feet. For a hundred miles, oranges grow on the Ridge in a broad continuous ribbon."If one had, by some fiat, to restrict all of John McPhee's writing to one paragraph, this excerpt from THE FOUNDING FISH would be a good representative example, something of a core sample of years of excellent prose. The reference to the Florida orange crop in the last sentence neatly encapsulates ORANGES, McPhee's epic 1967 writing on the classical, biological, economic and social history of oranges, written in that startlingly crisp and literate prose that is his hallmark. The discussion of Floridian geology is evocative of his masterpiece, ANNALS OF THE FORMER WORLD, a four-volume exploration of geology and the plate tectonics revolution that won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1999. McPhee has written the authoritative texts on a dizzying array of topics, as varied as Alaska (COMING INTO THE COUNTRY), the merchant marine (LOOKING FOR A SHIP), and Bill Bradley (A SENSE OF WHERE YOU ARE). THE FOUNDING FISH continues in this tradition. It is the definitive work on the American shad. There are, therefore, only two groups of readers who will be delighted by it; those who have heard of the American shad, and those who have not. The latter group would include, say, Southerners raised on catfish, those from the Western trout streams, and the ice fishermen of the Northern Lakes. The shad, like the salmon, is an ocean fish that swims into freshwater rivers to spawn, and is therefore common only on the East Coast and the West Coast. Any further discussion of shad, and their ways, and their habits, and their lifecycle, and their savory taste would here be superfluous, if not downright rude. McPhee --- no slouch himself as a shad fisherman --- knows shad and their ways. John McPhee knows shad the way that Stephen Hawking knows physics, the way that Billy Graham knows the Bible, the way that Nolan Ryan knows the fastball. What he doesn't know, he has learned; the book is filled with discussions, consultations, and fishing trips with people for whom shad is a scientific study, a magnificent obsession, a way of life. The book is as wide-ranging as the shad itself. McPhee takes us on expeditions to the Delaware River, the heartland of shad fishing, to the furthest extremes of the fish's range in the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia to the St. John's River in Florida. Along the way, the reader is treated to in-depth discussions of the shad's habits, its love life, its place in American history, and its place in American cuisine. (McPhee likes his shad fillets broiled, with lemon pepper.) If THE FOUNDING FISH has a flaw, it is that it is not built around a central compelling personality. McPhee describes shad fishermen as unfailingly polite, and the people he talks to throughout the book are certainly polite, but they are not the sort of people you remember. Compared to the colorful geologists that play such an important role in ANNALS OF THE FORMER WORLD, the shad experts in THE FOUNDING FATHER are unassuming and quiet, almost anonymous. THE FOUNDING FISH is longer than other of McPhee's books. Partly this is because it is so obviously a labor of love. Partly, also, it is because there is so much information crammed into its pages --- perhaps too much information --- especially in the chapter on fish dissection. But readers seeking clear exposition in crystalline prose about a topic on which they know nothing ---or everything --- will find THE FOUNDING FISH to be an exquisite, compelling experience. --- Reviewed by Curtis Edmonds
Rating: 
Summary: Schooling fish
Review: American shad are schooling ocean fish. When the water warms past 40 degrees F. the migration begins. Like salmon shad return to the natal waters. The author says he has been a shad fisherman for seven years. Evidently he is quite taken with the hobby. More than once he notes that shad fishermen are the polite fishermen on the rivers and streams. He is headquartered in an appropriate area to pursue his interest, in the vicinty of Lambertville. The record catch for the Delaware River is eleven pounds one ounce and for the Connecticut River eleven pounds four ounces. The range of the American shad is Northern Florida to Labrador. You cannot muscle the fish into submission. The Connecticut River is rich in shad but lacking places for casting. Shad are fish with emotional problems. The Delaware River is the only river not blocked by a dam. Shad are main stem spawners. There are nine shad hatcheries in the United States. Dams destroy rivers. Conservation groups are bothered at the thought of dams. Historically the Kennebec was rich in shad, sturgeon, salmon, and ship-building--Bath Iron Works. When the Edwards dam near Augusta was removed, an ecosystem sixteen decades old was destroyed. Dams are said to last on the average fifty years.
Rating: 
Summary: Founding Fish by the Founding Father of The Narrative
Review: Another excellent effort by John McPhee who chronicles science like no other can. I have been reading McPhee since "Coming Into The Country" in 1976, which prompted me to go there as fast as I could. At a cafe up there I ran into one of his real characters who spoke well of the writer, although not all did. It became the first chapter of my book "Alaska Tales," where I attempted to cast light on the same obscure figures as this great teacher. It is something to aspire to over the years, not overnight. This effort is a classic. A fish biography, for me a sometimes fish biologist like many of those he consults and profiles in the story, there is no better idea for a subject in today's world of myth and deception. This is how the truth is told by the master of the craft. The historical anecdotes interwoven with a current era canoe trip is the perfect marriage of the ages. McPhee imagines the men of the Arnold expedition led by my Great....grandfather Major Reuben Colburn at a particular eddy in the Kennebec River of my home state of Maine in an exquisite remanisence. That spot in time is the the focus of my latest story "Patriot On The Kennebec," but it is an honor for Mr. McPhee to notice this passed over history. The shad were important to our country's founding. Now maybe more will notice and help to restore America's rivers to their once mighty bounty.
Rating:
Summary: Drags a bit.
Review: As an avid fishkeeper and fisherwoman, I felt compelled to buy this book. I enjoyed it, but felt that it dragged on. I wanted more information on the natural history, physiology and relation of the fish to history than we got. The book spent too much time describing McPhee's fishing and lure choices. What can I say? I love to fish, but think reading about someone else fishing is BORING. So overall, I like the book, but think it would have been better if it had been shorter. It's still worth a read though.
Rating:
Summary: Delightful for history and fish lovers
Review: enjoyed this book even thought I am not an angler. Lots of American history.
Rating:
Summary: They're In the River!!!!
Review: Finish-up those tax returns folks because they'll start passing Lambertville around 4/15. I heard about this book for a long time before I finally got around to reading it. I read it three times right away and still pick it up to read selected parts again and again. I am a sucker for natural history books and I also happen to be an enthusiastic shad fisherman. But this book also covers ecology and fascinating slices of American history. I grew up around Valley Forge and always heard about how the American Shad saved the Continental Army. Really? Better read the book. Also, check-out the part about
Gen's George Pickett and Fitzhugh Lee. An excellent read on more levels than I have room to discuss here. Read it!
Rating:
Summary: They're In the River!!!!
Review: Finish-up those tax returns folks because they'll start passing Lambertville around 4/15. I heard about this book for a long time before I finally got around to reading it. I read it three times right away and still pick it up to read selected parts again and again. I am a sucker for natural history books and I also happen to be an enthusiastic shad fisherman. But this book also covers ecology and fascinating slices of American history. I grew up around Valley Forge and always heard about how the American Shad saved the Continental Army. Really? Better read the book. Also, check-out the part about
Gen's George Pickett and Fitzhugh Lee. An excellent read on more levels than I have room to discuss here. Read it!
Rating:
Summary: up to snuff
Review: First, a confession: I feel somewhat like a husband whose been disloyal, if only in his heart, to a faithful and altogether wonderful wife, just because he's
grown bored by the very routine of their relationship. I've been reading John McPhee since I was a kid and he was writing about Princeton and
Knickerbocker hero Bill Bradley. In those nearly forty years I can't recall a single uninteresting piece he's written and many of them are marvelous. But
when this book came over the transom was my reaction: great, a new John McPhee!? No. To my shame, it was: oh geez, 350 more routinely excellent pages
from McPhee. Are there so many good authors out there that one can afford to be blasé about one of the best? Would I rather a book that might quite possibly
stink, written by someone else, just for the uncertainty involved in reading it? How callow. In my own defense though, this time out Mr. McPhee is writing about the American shad. I'm as big a fan of fishing literature as anyone, but who does not
feel, when they see a new fishing book nowadays, the way C.S. Lewis felt one night at a meeting of the Inklings, when J.R.R. Tolkien prepared to read to the
assembled from his latest work: "Oh, no! Not another [freaking] elf!"? In your heart of hearts, don't you say to yourself: "Oh, no! Not another freaking fishing book!"? All the more reason to feel like a fool now, having read the book, when Mr. McPhee has demonstrated once again that he's one of the finest non-fiction writers in our history and that there's still plenty
of life in the fishing genre. Mr. McPhee may not quite have invented the technique of taking a topic and looking at it in detail from top to bottom--the shelves are packed with books that have
borrowed the technique, books with names like: Salt; Cod; Tobacco; and Coal--but he is the master. And so, in this book, we get the entire natural history of the fish and no one will finish the last page
wishing he knew more about the shad. However, there are two segments that stand out and definitively lift the work out of the ordinary. It opens with that most hackneyed of scenes, an epic battle to
land the big one, but in the author's capable hands it somehow seems new and fresh. It goes on for page after page, until the cops have even shown up--at his wife's request, to make sure he's not
dead--until the climax can't possibly be worthy of the fight, but still he manages to make it satisfying. The other highlight surprises because it's so politically incorrect. The final chapter takes on not only PETA and other animal rights groups but well-intentioned fishermen everywhere to challenge the
notion of catch and release. Honestly and guiltlessly discussing the inevitable damage that just landing a fish does to the animal, he leaves little doubt that however good releasing them may make
fishermen and activists feel about themselves, it does little to help fish or fisheries. This ability to make the old seem fresh and to look at the seemingly sacred from a fresh perspective, make Mr. McPhee, even in his twenty-sixth book, a writer of currency and pertinence. I repent of
my sin and I shan't ever doubt him again.
Rating:
Summary: Fish Story
Review: I have never fished, never even wetted a hook, but I just finished an entire book about shad fishing! Only John McPhee, finally hitting his stride again after two rather disappointing outings could do it.
His secret is telling a story through people, in this case through icthyologists, commercial shad fishermen, shad dart mavens, historians, and his own personal experience.
I particularly liked his interlude with the Bay of Fundy brush weir fisherman. As with many McPhee expositions, I felt that by the time I was done reading his chapter, I could have gone to the Bay of Fundy and built a brush weir myself.
And I can only hope that someday I will be able to write such direct yet luminous prose.
Rating:
Summary: The "Compleat Shad"--and more
Review: I just had a few miscellaneous comments on this book.
I enjoy McPhee's books although I rarely have the time to read them through cover to cover. But I'll often dip into them and enjoy his insights into the people and things he writes about. McPhee has a fine ability to evoke what is special about a place, the people who live there, and what they do, and this book is no different. With his usual low-key but engaging and conversational style, McPhee regales us with accounts of the people who fish for shad. Before reading this book, I had no idea there was a particular, well, subculture of shad fisherman who were distinct from, say striped bass or salmon fisherman or others. In one of the funnier sections in the book, McPhee and a couple of other shad fisherman friends are discussing the difference between shad and striped bass fisherman. They agree that shad fisherman are polite and more cultured, whereas the striper types are "the wrestling crowd," "have missing teeth," and are "rude." However, they are also, as one of them says, "kick-ass fisherman." (I don't know how true it is, but as I know nothing of fishing culture I will give McPhee the benefit of the doubt).
The book is replete with accounts of the present day as well as the historical importance of shad. Washington's troops feasted on a large shad catch during the shad's up river swim to spawn one season, which Washington knew about, and where and when to get the best catch. What they couldn't eat at the time, they salted and stored away for future use. In fact, McPhee states that Washington himself was a shad fisherman.
I had one minor criticism. One of the fisherman who is also a fish biologist, Kynard, says that fish don't see the way we do, and that they see by light using up a photochemical by the name of rhodopsin. However, this is no different from the way all vertebrates see, including humans. All vertebrates have rhodopsin in their retinal cells and the amount of rhodopsin activity is proportional to the amount of light. Where fish differ from us is in having many more cones, the basis of color vision. We have only three cones, red, green, and blue, but fish have 6 or 7, and reptiles and amphibians have 4 or 5. Hence, they likely see even more colors than we do and have better vision there.
Kynard makes one interesting observation, however, which is that he thinks that shad have trouble going up river under very bright light conditions since their eyes become depleted of rhodopsin. For example, they have trouble with whitewater which could be because it reflects a lot of light, and it confuses the shad, whereas salmon and other fish seem to have no trouble. I thought this was an interesting speculation. I suppose this is possible, although rhodopsin is recycled at a furious rate in the retina.
Anyway, I apologize for waxing so nerdy, but I was trained as a sensory neurophysiolgist once. Overall, I enjoyed the book and it's another example of how McPhee can bring his journalistic expertise and talents to the enjoyable exploration of what might seem to be a very narrow or specialized field, but which in McPhee's case, can become a microcosm for life itself, the conversations ranging from the shad specific to marriage to work and life in general, often looked at from the perspective of the home-spun wisdom and common sense of the intrepid shad fisherman. Of course there's a huge amount of fascinating info about shad fishing here, and much of it is specific to shad. For example, I learned more about how to make shad lures and darts than I probably ever wanted to know. :-) But it was interesting and enjoyable to read about nevertheless.
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