I felt like I had walked onto the pages of Trout Magic. There I was- casting into the fabled Frenchman’s Pond under the friendly guidance of Ernest “Woody” Wood, John Voelker’s son-in-law. Frenchman’s Pond – also known as Uncles – is a long narrow beaver flowage that appears in several of Voelker’s stories, a carefully guarded secret fishing spot. Voelker (always “John” to Woody, so even I started referring to him as John, as if I had known him, although I still think of him

This whole trip is Gracie's doing. Last year, when we were preparing to publish The Confluence, I had to get permission to reprint the famous soliloquy by Robert Traver called A Testament of a Fisherman, which Bob Chamberlin had included in his essay 'Art & Lit in the Grant.' Robert Traver is the pen name of the late John D. Voelker, one of my favorite authors, who wrote Anatomy of a Murder (1958), which later became an Academy Award nominated motion picture starring Jimmy St