The Founding Fish

by John McPhee

Book Overview

John McPhee's twenty-sixth book is a braid of personal history, natural history, and American history, in descending order of volume. Each spring, American shad-Alosa sapidissima-leave the ocean in hundreds of thousands and run heroic distances upriver to spawn.

McPhee--a shad fisherman himself--recounts the shad's cameo role in the lives of George Washington and Henry David Thoreau. He fishes with and visits the laboratories of famous ichthyologists;...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374528837
• ISBN13: 9780374528836
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Great book.

Well written, interesting read

Mc Phee Can Make Anything Interesting!

This book reinforces my belief that anything by McPhee will be good reading. Enough said.

The "Compleat Shad"--and more

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 journa

The antics of the anadromous

John McPhee, "a registered curmudgeon", was fishing for shad on the Delaware River one afternoon when he felt a tug. Nearly three hours later, amidst a serious debate over what was on the end of the line, a concerned wife's inquiry forwarded by a policeman, and cheers from interested spectators, McPhee pulled from the river a 4 - 3/4 pound roe shad. Clearly not a record-setter, nor an exotic species - the debate suggested bass, sturgeon and even tarpon. What prompted McPhee to relate this event in opening a lengthy account of what, to some, remains a mediocre animal? Surely, John McPhee, who has written of continental movement and extended vistas, must have a compelling reason to deal with such a mundane topic.McPhee's reputation as a writer should need no introduction. However, if you are unacquainted with his work, you can start here with confidence. He deftly presents a melange of scientific information, "folk wisdom", history and personal experience. As with his work on geology, he entices researchers, fishermen, guides and legislators to provide him their views, which he relates with sympathy and clarity. Throughout this narrative, his own experiences are told with wit and compassion. Fishermen are great whingers, but McPhee brings a new level of sensitivity to his personal accounts. He knows there's a god when a nearby fisherman nets six fish while his hook remains empty - only a god could permit such arbitrary antics in nature.The research and folk tales centre on a particular form of fish. Anadromous ["running up"] fish, among which salmon are the most famous, can move from an ocean environment up fresh water streams to spawn. This talent requires bizarre body chemistry, bearing immense costs. Salmon die after spawning, partly because they don't feed on the upstream run. Shad, too, remain hungry heading "home" to breed, but some shad return to the sea after mating. In some regions they may make three or four trips in a lifetime. McPhee, accompanied by fishermen and researchers, traces the history and physiology of the American shad. Other piscine species are touched on, including, of all things, a hammerhead shark. The shad, however, keeps centre stage. Once scorned as "just shad", chiefly due to its bony nature, many now acclaim its flavour when it reaches the table - hence the species name "Alosa sapidissima" - "most savoury".Books about sports are a major industry. They suffer a common fault - they're universally inwardly focussed. Baseball fans don't read about cross-country skiing. Golfers don't read about ice hockey. And fishing? There's divided opinion about fishing among sportsmen. Golfers, baseball fans, or hockey buffs often view fishermen with kindly disdain. Up at ungodly hours, thrashing through damp woods to take up stations at a bug-infested stream or foggy lake. Not something reasonable or civilised people should do. McPhee's experiences, brought to light by his superb prose, bring fresh breadt

Everything About Shad, And Everything Connected to Shad

John McPhee has written numerous pieces for _The New Yorker_ and over a score of books on such subjects as oranges, canoes, and geology. His wide range of interests now centers on an object of personal obsession; in _The Founding Fish_ (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux) he tells us about his own passion for fishing for shad. As you might expect, he can't help but tell us a lot more, about history, ecology, and human oddities. If you don't know about shad, and even if you don't know about fishing, and don't care to know about it, you won't feel alienated away from these pages, which contain McPhee's fine prose and wry humor. (For instance, he is surprised to find a snake in his net: "I lack the sense of companionship that some people seem to have with snakes.") Shad is worth knowing about, it turns out, and so is McPhee, who has seldom put himself as a character in his own books.Of course, there is much advice about fishing for shad, which seem to be a particularly elusive fish. McPhee quotes extensively from his fishing diaries, and starts his book with a funny description of an epic battle with a shad on the Delaware River starts. McPhee has seventy feet of six-pound test line "suddenly pulled by a great deal more than the current." The battle goes on for pages and pages, eventually ending in the netting of a 4 3/4 pound shad. A fighting fish, to be sure. Or a clumsy angler. Shad is not an endangered species, but of course they have been affected by the humans changing their waters. Beside the problem of pollution, there are thousands of dams on rivers that used to present only milder natural obstacles for the returning fish. Some of the dams are, surprisingly, coming down, and McPhee takes us to a dam-removing ceremony. As the title implies, shad have played a role in American history. George Washington seined for shad on the Potomac. He didn't eat them; only one shad bone has turned up in the excavation of his garbage pit at Mount Vernon (and McPhee can't help an interesting digression upon "archaeozoology"). His slaves got them, and he used shad as a fertilizer. Despite the legend, his men at Valley Forge were not saved from starvation by a providential, unseasonal run of shad up the Schuylkill River. Thoreau worried about shad in their thousands meeting a new commercial dam, and wrote the lament, "Poor shad! where is thy redress?" Thoreau advised the fish, "Keep a stiff fin and stem all the tides thou mayst meet." Words to live by.Once again, McPhee has picked an unlikely subject and made everything about it vivid, interesting, and important. If you fish, you will love this book. If you don't fish, here is a book to give you an idea about why intelligent fishermen go about their often frustrating hobby with such evident pleasure. _The Founding Fish_ is a delightful small encyclopedia on everything connected with shad.

A Good Fish Story

The Founding Fish does what only a few books do well, take an obscure topic, look at it from every angle and still maintain the reader's interest from cover to cover. Who'd've thought that there was a whole book waiting to be written about the shad and people who care about it?McPhee's style makes for easy reading and his eye for detail and for the interesting approach is fun. The book will carry you off to sleep for several nights, or keep you entertained all the way across the country at 35,000ft.

McPhee on top of his game

John McPhee can make _anything_ interesting. Oranges? Yep. Birchbark canoes? You bet. Well, he's done it again with a fascinating look at the American shad. This is no trendy fish, but don't let that fool you. There is more material here than in any two books written about trout or bass.Perhaps the most captivating aspect of the book is McPhee's ability to interweave history, science, and personal narrative. I was amazed to learn what an important role the shad has played in the history of the United States, and what an equally important role Americans have had in shaping the history of the shad. But most satisfying is what we learn about McPhee himself, both his shad fishing exploits and misadventures. With a dry sense of humor and mastery of understatement, the author kept me chuckling throughout. I would heartily recommend this book to anyone who enjoys history, science, fishing--or who appreciates reading remarkably tight and engaging prose. McPhee is a master writer, and we all stand to learn a great deal from him.