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Rating: 
Summary: Fly fishing with Brains, Wit, Charm and Soul.
Review: Last week I bought a few books from Amazon and needed to spend a few dollars more to get free shipping. I did a quick search and came up with this book, Angling Baja, and bought it because it was about saltwater fly-fishing and because it was cheap.
I got the book in the mail yesterday and started reading snippets of it, and immediately, I was hooked.
Tonight I turned off the TV and spent the past three hours or so reading this little marvel. And a real gem it is too. Over the years I have occasionally found some damn fine writing that centered on sports, usually on boxing or fishing, or occasionally even on baseball. This book, this writer, Scott Sadil, is totally impressive.
I am a writer myself ( Birthday Boy, Happy Hour, Allergy-Free Gardening, Safe Sex in the Garden ) and like Sadil I've had a life of ups and plenty of downs, and like him I appreciate a good story, a full glass of whiskey, a nice fly rod, surfing, any kind of fish caught on a fly, and all sorts of other things...but read his book for that.
As soon as I finished reading tonight I decided I would get right on the computer and write a review of it. I'm hoping to write one that will compel you who happens to read this, to order this book. I used to believe that a truly fine writer would automatically become successful as soon as he (or she) was published...but that isn't true at all. Genius isn't always recognized by any means, and I speak of Sadil's writing here, not mine. (I'm recognized now, just not a genius I'm afraid). I Googled Scott Sadil, hoping to come up with thousands of hits but found a mere 312 references to him. I was hoping too, to discover that he'd published a novel, and was disappointed to see that he hadn't, yet.
I did see that Sadil does have a second, newer book, Cast from the Edge: Tales of an Uncommon Fly Fisher. I'm going to buy that book too, and am almost certain that it will be terrific. But I really do want to see a novel from this writer. He has a writer's eye for things, a writer's ear that picks up the best tidbits of dialog, he has that novelist's sense of where the meat is, and he's got plenty of heart. Unless I miss my mark, expect a superb novel (maybe several?) from this fellow some day, and hopefully sooner rather than later.
Okay, in case you just like to fish and don't give a hoot about really great writing, there are many very good surf-fishing tips here. I underlined a lot of pages and will be using them too. Scott Sadil takes his fishing seriously and has done plenty of it. For those of you, like me, who love fishing, nature, and good writing, 'come on, get a copy of this book and read it! I swear I don't know Scott Sadil and no one asked me to write this review. But his writing is that good, uncommonly so, and he deserves a far wider audience. ... this book is a steal!
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