Chris Santella – författare

Through long, cold winters, anglers dream of fishing season and mark their calendars to plan their fishing trips come spring. They speak in hushed voices around the fireplace or over a pint at the local pub of the Skwala Stone in April, the Green Drake and Salmonfly in June, the blanket Caddis and Hexagenia in July and other epic hatches -- moments when the fishing can be so good it can create memories of a lifetime.

The Hatch is On! will be a celebration, in both words and pictures, of fly fishing’s most treasured insect emergences and the incredible angling experiences these hatches create. Every experienced fly-fisherman treasures the beautiful afternoons when he can take advantage of a big insect hatch. When all the stars align and the fish start feeding, it’s like running an interception back for a touchdown, it’s like sinking a three pointer at the buzzer. It’s the very reason why you’re a fly-fisherman in the first place. The Hatch is On! will speak specifically to the sentimentalist in all of us.

Why our cats are a danger to species diversity and human healthIn 1894, a lighthouse keeper named David Lyall arrived on Stephens Island off New Zealand with a cat named Tibbles. In just over a year, the Stephens Island Wren, a rare bird endemic to the island, was rendered extinct. Mounting scientific evidence confirms what many conservationists have suspected for some time—that in the United States alone, free-ranging cats are killing birds and other animals by the billions. Equally alarming are the little-known but potentially devastating public health consequences of rabies and parasitic Toxoplasma passing from cats to humans at rising rates. Cat Wars tells the story of the threats free-ranging cats pose to biodiversity and public health throughout the world, and sheds new light on the controversies surrounding the management of the explosion of these cat populations.This compelling book traces the historical and cultural ties between humans and cats from early domestication to the current boom in pet ownership, along the way accessibly explaining the science of extinction, population modeling, and feline diseases. It charts the developments that have led to our present impasse—from Stan Temple''s breakthrough studies on cat predation in Wisconsin to cat-eradication programs underway in Australia today. It describes how a small but vocal minority of cat advocates has campaigned successfully for no action in much the same way that special interest groups have stymied attempts to curtail smoking and climate change.Cat Wars paints a revealing picture of a complex global problem—and proposes solutions that foresee a time when wildlife and humans are no longer vulnerable to the impacts of free-ranging cats.

Belgian Flats is the story of Cody, a fly-fishing guide whose career has hit a dead end after a dozen years guiding on a famed western trout stream. Cody’s mentor suggests that he take a job as a lodge manager at a prestigious Atlantic salmon lodge in northwestern Russia. The story follows Cody’s travels to the Kola Peninsula and his encounters with the characters who filter through—from philosophizing oligarchs to Samí herdsmen who are not above kidnapping lodge staff to maintain control of their historic lands. There’s even a love interest. Belgian Flats provides an offbeat and humorous insider’s view of the fly-fishing world that angling aficionados will appreciate.