I don't think I'm going in over my waders when I say that James Prosek's paintings will be the gold standard for angling art for generations to come. I am not quite prepared to say that Prosek's fish will endure as Audubon's birds have, though Prosek was being called the Audubon of fish while he was still a student at Yale. During his college years he published his first book, Trout (Knopf, 1996) and distinguished himself as an artist of another kind: Prosek talked Yale into funding a two-year fellowship to fish. To be absolutely fair, the fellowship resulted in another book, Prosek's version of The Compleat Angler, Izaak Walton's 1653 classic, which had to wait nearly three-and-a-half centuries for its rightful illustrator. Just in time for Christmas, a new Prosek project has arrived: Tight Lines -- Ten Years of the Yale Anglers' Journal (Yale University Press, 2007).

The Journal itself was yet another undergraduate project of Prosek's. When Joseph Furia visited the Yale campus in 1996 as a prospective student, he had already decided to go to Middlebury, which he thought would offer better trout fishing opportunities. But a cousin introduced Furia to Prosek, who suggested that if Furia enrolled at Yale the two of them could start a fishing journal. He did, and they did. The Yale Anglers' Journal would be, in Furia's words, "a literary publication that explored life through the medium of angling." And so it became.

Tight Lines is a collection of writings that appeared in the pages of the Journal during its first decade, and a brilliant collection it is, a perfect companion for the long cold months between seasons. And of course it is illustrated by James Prosek, which fact alone makes it worth the asking price.

Given a book of this quality and substance, I shouldn't quibble about typos and punctuation -- but I will. (You can take the prof out of the classroom, but you can't take the classroom out of the prof.) In Prosek's preface, he writes of a passion for fishing "...that began when I was nine-years-old." Nine years old should not be hyphenated, but the error is repeated later. In the text of "A Fishing Talk Given at Yale" by Ernest Schwiebert, the name of Dame Juliana Berners comes up, as it often does in discussions of the genesis of angling literature. But two paragraphs later a typo changes the Dame's name to "Bemers." Two paragraphs beyond that I came across a standard undergraduate blooper (italics mine): "Burton...spent decades pouring over the collated books and manuscripts..." I submit that "pouring" anything over ancient manuscripts even once, not to mention doing it for decades, would do irreparable harm to the manuscripts and get the pourer into hot water; surely "poring" is what Burton was doing.

Quibbles aside, this Tight Lines is a wonderful little book and would make a great gift. So would the book of the same name published in 2004 by my angling artist pal Dave Tibbetts. Dave's Tight Lines (Grey Ghost Publishing) is a collection of his wonderful paintings of scenes familiar to many Maine and New Hampshire anglers, such as the pool at Upper Dam, the Kennebago River, Rangeley boats and fishing camps. James Prosek may be the greatest painter of fish, but for my money David Tibbetts is the best painter of angling scenes since Winslow Homer.

First, let me say that I am not roasting a 25-pound salmon for Thanksgiving dinner. I love the traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner with every hi-cal accompaniment possible. But as I'm devouring turkey bathed in rich brown gravy along with forkfuls of buttery mashed potato, savory stuffing and the rest, followed by a bowl of warm Indian pudding with whipped cream -- and quite possibly a slab of pumpkin pie as well -- I'll be thinking of fish, fishing, and all the things an angler should be thankful for.

I am thankful that this planet still is home to some clear, cold rivers and streams wherein dwell wild fishes. Likewise I am thankful for deepwoods ponds ringed with cedar and spruce that remain undefiled by motorheads.

I am thankful for the astonishing leap of the salmon, for the impossibly beautiful sunset orange of a brook trout's belly; for the push of the current against my legs; for the rise-ring of a trout on the still surface of a pond; for the heart-stopping moment of a strike; for the graceful lines of a canoe.

I am thankful for the magic wands we call flyrods, and for the anglers who use them; for the courteous angler who shares the good spots; for the organizations such as Trout Unlimited whose good works help to preserve what's left of the dwindling resource.

I am thankful for the tyers of flies who do it so much better than I do; for the jaunty ride of a perfect dryfly down a sparkling riffle; for the mysterious unseen drift of a nymph.

I am thankful for the warmth of the camp stove in the chill of a Fall evening, and for the warming cup o' kindness shared with my brother and fellow angler; for the writers of fishing tales that help to pass the long Maine winters; for the painters who capture the beauty of the fish and the places where they dwell.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here's how the month of November is summed up: No sun, no moon, no stars, No-vember.

Or, more poetically:

That time of year thou may'st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold;
Bare ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
Sonnet 73

That Willie Shakespeare! He had a way wit' woids, yeah?

Some of my favorite times in the Maine woods were November days, none of them having anything to do with fishing. They were days when I would rise before dawn, layer myself in long-johns, sweaters, red wool hat and coat, and tramp through The Bog in search of whitetail deer. In those days I was both a hunter and a smoker, and loved the aroma of tobacco smoke in the cold air. Parts of The Bog had once been farmed, and ancient apple trees of lost variety, now part of the regrown forest, still bore small tart fruit which gave extra tang to the purity of the air and the chill of the day.

I gave up smoking and hunting at the same time, so now when November comes around my thoughts usually center on fishing, on the season just ended and the one in the distant future, seen through eyes watering in a frigid northwest wind. Warm at my desk I think, "This year I'll go flyfishing in November, and maybe even in December." There are waters that remain open, waters with fine populations of trout, but I have yet to venture forth from my heated sanctuary into the icy waters of winter angling. But I am determined to do it. I mean, if there are legal waters to fish, why don't I go fishing? What's stopping me?

Pain, mostly. I know my toes will go numb, my fingers will freeze, my rod guides will ice up, and I will wonder what sort of insanity I have come down with that brought me to a river in November.

But there will be days, I know, when the wind is benign and the sun is shining and the thermometer rises to September heights, and this year when that day comes I will go fishing. Just yesterday a fellow angler reminded me of the big broodfish, 18-to-20-inch brown trout, that are stocked into local waters after their happy days at the hatchery are over, and how they are tough to catch but will surely go for a tiny midge drifted just so. Yes, this is the year for November fishing. For sure.

I think.

A trio of anglers trudging away from the pool said they hadn't done so well on what was probably their last day of fishing of the 2007 season. I said that my brother and I had done pretty well. The next question was predictable.

"What were you using?"

"Midges. Size 20."

Looks of astonishment. "Midges? Size 20?" They had seen big fish porpoising in the current, but couldn't figure out what they were after.

Well, duh. What else do you see hatching in late October? There are no caddis fluttering by. No Mayflies. No nuthin'. Just midges, so small it's easy to miss them even though there might be hundreds of them in the air. And the fish are homing on them in the water, seeing little else that you might fling their way. Size seemed to be important. Color seemed to be important. Size 20 blue-winged olives, fished just beneath the surface, carried the day.

The good thing about using midges at a time like that is that you get plenty of hits. The frustrating thing is that not every hit translates into a hook-up. The tiny hooks don't always catch enough lip to hang onto, just enough to prick the fish and throw him off his feed for a while. But when you do hook up, and bring a fish to the net, the little fly is usually sitting right there on the outside edge of the lip, easily removed if it doesn't simply fall out by itself once the pressure is off the line.

Some of the salmon, hook-jawed males, were so bronze they looked like Brown Trout. Spawning colors, I guess. And the occasional male Brookie was as beautiful as the autumn foliage. It's a wonderful time to fish.

Now the foliage has fallen, the branches are bare, the flyrods are in their tubes waiting for spring. The time for the tying of flies, the retelling of fish stories , the dreaming of a fresh season, has come.