Writing about Chris Dombrowski’s 2016 book Body of Water—which recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal’s list of the five best books on angling—John Gierach described Dombrowski’s voice as “concise language that reminded me of Gary Snyder one minute and John McPhee the next.” Dombrowski’s most recent book, The River You Touch, has been described by USA Today as “A poignant rumination on marriage, parenthood, friendship and what it means to connect with nature.”

Some years back, I had the opportunity to fly fish for trophy northern pike on Reindeer Lake, a massive and unspoiled boreal lake that straddles the border of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. We hit the lake right around the summer solstice — the ideal time for trophy pike in the northern reaches of Canada’s southern provinces. We arrived during a short cold snap that quickly retreated and spent a week watching the lake go from spring to summer in just a matter of days.

Fishing was good. Really good.