Top of the Flood: Halfway Through a Fly-Fishing Life

From his early years with bass bugs and soggy sneakers, Tosh Brown takes us on a forty-year odyssey of rivers and oceans from Alaska to the Amazon.

Top of the Flood begins in the summer of 1976 and ends on Tosh's 50th birthday with an evolved realization that the fish count is a minor component of the larger scene, and that one can grow old without becoming an old geezer.

With volumes of published fly-fishing photographs, Tosh is well known for his skill with a camera. But as you'll discover in this book, he also has a rare talent for arranging words on paper. Not only can Tosh do both, he excels at both. He's like the Deion Sanders of freelancers, minus man-to-man coverage ability.

Writing humor is a lot harder than most people think, yet Tosh makes it look easy. His humble style fits well with his frequent Texas cultural references, and he presents an honest, unfiltered portrait of each destination that he visits.

I've chased redfish with Tosh in South Louisiana, and bonefish and snook, via kayak, in the Yucatan. He brings a unique perspective along on every adventure, and he transcribes them into stories with proficiency and candor. If the second half of his life reads as well as the first, I look forward to the sequel.

Tom Bie
Publisher
The Drake