Bookshelf: Cast Catch Release by Marina Gibson

Crafting a memoir is not easy, and if the results are any good, writing a fly fishing memoir is all the more challenging. That the story flows naturally for Marina Gibson in her debut title, Cast Catch Release, is a reflection of a life sprung from, and lived on, the water. The achievement is a book not of tropes but truths, relying appropriately on the practice of her lifetime to come to light.

Gibson interweaves the migratory journey of the Atlantic salmon into her narrative, educating readers with a fundamental understanding of this ever-threatened "King of Fish." These passages mark her best writing in the book, but her own journey is equally important to arguing why we should care to fight now for the health of our waterways. Gibson’s informative prose is not limited to the Atlantic salmon. She shares the history of her native, and the iconic, River Test as a barometer as a most protected, yet still at risk, river.

Gibson writes with self awareness in her role in the social media rise of fishing, and discovery of a lineage of female anglers. At a time when fishing seems to be evolving into political frontiers far removed from the essentially solitary activity, Cast Catch Release is a salve, a reminder that it’s okay, if not best, to want to fish not to belong, but to get away with one’s self.

That is not Gibson’s message as much as my reaction to the publication of Cast Catch Release, an affirmation that women everywhere are entitled to fish–or do any number of things–without seeking attention. As a reluctant late adapter, I praise social media platforms as communication tools, but worry more as to their ability to seemingly rewire people’s brains counter to common sense. Witnessing Gibson’s online presence remain both very active and above the fray, followed by the release of nothing less than a book, illuminates a role model. It’s important to understand Gibson is not responsible for the media's objectification of her image. Her substantive explanation for the lure of jungle fishing works equally well to move one’s imagination beyond the limits of social media bait to consider the appeal.

Gibson’s casting development and certification as an instructor serve as an additional narrative arch, and her personal story, one in which she finds retreat in planning her next sponsored fishing trip while others plan her wedding, reads like that of a confiding friend to whom you do not mind listening, and imagine one day maybe along a riverbank, she would do the same.

Cast Catch Release by Marina Gibson

• Publisher: Scribner (June 4, 2024)
• Length: 240 pages
• ISBN13: 9781982197315