The Believer: A Year in the Fly Fishing Life

In his latest, artist, writer, and set designer Coggins (The Optimist: A Case for the Fly Fishing Life) captures the many faces of fly-fishing—simple, impossible, demanding, beautiful, elegant, ugly, infuriating, cathartic, and glorious, sometimes all within the span of 10 minutes. Narrator Scott Brick accompanies listeners, describing seven remarkable fishing trips that Coggins took over the course of a year. On fishing trips in Scotland, Cuba, Spain, Belize, Argentina, and the United States, Coggins encounters different cultures, customs, and people—kindred spirits and stern teachers alike—as he searches for that elusive moment, so eloquently described by the late Norman Maclean, when a fishing rod and a healthy dose of humility come together. Brick’s engaging narration captures Coggins’s conversational yet reflective tone, describing his observations and realizations with an artifice-free approach. Coggins is by no means a professional flycaster, but this works in his favor, as both anglers and nonanglers will be able to appreciate his candid, humble account.