The Best Fly Fishing Is Everywhere - by Jesse Lance Robbins (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

An exciting collection of essays, short stories and reflections on fly fishing.

In The Best Fly Fishing Is Everywhere, Jesse Lance Robbins invites readers into a contemplative journey through water and time. This collection of essays, stories, and meditations moves beyond the pursuit of the perfect cast or the biggest catch. Instead, it explores fly fishing as a dialogue between human and nature, solitude and connection, movement and stillness.

From the misty rivers of Oregon to the urban streams of Tokyo, the windswept flats of Key West to the trout-laced waters of New Zealand, Robbins captures the essence of place and the spirit of the angler. Each chapter is a moment suspended--sometimes triumphant, sometimes humbling, always honest.

Whether fishing alone or with companions, chasing trout or tarpon, Robbins reminds us that the best fishing isn't found on a map. It's found in the way we show up--in reverence, in curiosity, in love for the wild. Because the best fishing isn't about where you go. It's about what you find when you get there.

This is a book for those who fish, and for those who wonder why others do. It's for anyone who has ever stood beside a river and felt something ancient stir. With prose that is both poetic and grounded, The Best Fly Fishing Is Everywhere is a meditation on nature, memory, and the quiet joy of being fully present.

Review Quotes

"Jesse Robbins' essay collection, The Best Fly Fishing is Everywhere, focuses on the 'why' of fly fishing instead of the where, when, and how--a crucial distinction in our Internet/social media era. It's a tenet I believe in so strongly that I founded a magazine based on it. Not that you won't learn things by reading Robbins' writing; from the unique pageant of a hex hatch in Maine to the thousandth cast for a musky or steelhead to the 'dumb luck' of catching a permit, Robbins pleasantly describes the mix of joy and anguish found in the mental game of this beloved sport. He uses strong, surprising writing to inform, entertain, and enlighten his readers."
--Tom Bie, founder and editor of The Drake Magazine

"Robbins stands out for his ability to convey detail and abstractly riff and reflect on the broader fly fishing experience. This earnest, well-crafted collection of stories brings light to the fact that the people we fish with and the moments we share are often more memorable and important than the fish we catch."
--Ken Morrish, co-founder of Fly Water Travel, fly fishing photographer and writer

"Jesse Lance Robbins writes with the patience and precision of a seasoned angler. His sentences are clean, without wasted motion, and his stories linger in that liminal space between solitude and connection--where rolling a cigarette or changing a fly opens into something much larger. In The Best Fly Fishing is Everywhere, he finds grace in impermanence and meaning in what others might overlook. Don't expect answers. Expect company."
--Steve Duda, author of River Songs: Moments of Wild Wonder in Fly Fishing, head of Fish Tales at Patagonia, and former editor of The Flyfish Journal

"Jesse Lance Robbins has an eye for the unusual, the intriguing, and the downright surprising. Whether cataloguing obscene quantities of flies, delineating the precise qualities of a good cast, or simply sharing an old fashioned fishing tale, his eye for the unsung details that make fly fishing such a distinctive and special obsession is unmatched. The best fly fishing is indeed everywhere, because, as Robbins so artfully shows, the great thing about fly fishing is that it stays with us long after the flies have dried and we've stowed our rods."
--Jason Rolfe, editor of The Flyfish Journal

"It's obvious that fly fishing lives in Jesse's head just as much as it lives in his heart. Fly fishing stories from chasing big browns in New Zealand to tarpon in Florida and anadromous fish near the coasts, make it clear that yes, the best fly fishing is everywhere and Jesse joyously takes you along for the journey. Reading through each essay, you'll see his head and heart awake, alive, and anticipating his next encounter on a solo adventure or shared with loved ones. Sit down, grab a coffee, and enjoy this escape before planning your next adventure...everywhere."
--Kara Armano, editor of TROUT Weekly

"From Scotland to New Zealand, Bainbridge Island to Key West--Jesse Robbins' debut transports its reader as surely as a mountain stream carries an elk-hair caddis. Thanks to sharp detail and surprising turns of phrase, we're right on his shoulder as he casts for musky, Atlantic salmon, permit, Japanese seabass, cutthroat trout, Dean River steelhead, and so many others of this planet's most intriguing fish. In the end, you might just be persuaded: the world's best fly fishing exists everywhere that good friends, high adventure, and unflappable optimism converge."
--John Larison, bestselling author of Whiskey When We're Dry and The Ancients

About the Author

Jesse Lance Robbins is a writer, conservationist, and angler living near the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette Rivers in Springfield, Oregon. Born and raised in rural, Midcoast Maine, he grew up in a family of outdoors-lovers, with a river and a forest behind the house. Eventually moving west, he worked as a fly fishing guide, fly casting instructor, and for over a decade worked for Sage, Redington, RIO Products, and Fly Water Travel. Along the way, stories--read, heard, and told--have consumed and fueled him. Jesse's writing aims to inspire inquiry of the relationships that arise while on the water and out of doors, and has been featured in The Drake Magazine, The Flyfish Journal, Swing the Fly, Modern Huntsman, TROUT, and Atlantic Salmon Journal, as well as online. Currently, Jesse is the Development Officer at WaterWatch of Oregon, a river conservation nonprofit; is the Producer at Writers on the Fly, an in-person fly fishing literary reading series; and is President of the Redsides Chapter of Trout Unlimited.