You’ll hear some anglers say they spend thousands of dollars on fishing each year in pursuit of fish for the ‘sport’ of it. You’ll hear flyfishers talk about how it’s not about catching fish, it’s all about the art of the sport.

Anglers fish for so many reasons --- to fish with family, to fish with buddies, to fish alone, to catch big fish, to catch a lot of fish, to catch several species of fish, to catch a fish on a new lure, a specific type of lure, a fly you tied yourself, to try a new strategy, a new technique, to catch a rare species of fish, to catch several species of fish.

Sometimes, anglers fish for something as simple as wanting to try out the new rod, to feel the lapping waves against the boat, to say they fished in Bolivia or Nevada because no one ever thinks about fishing in Bolivia or Nevada. Sometimes, anglers fish to enjoy the solitary, intimate pleasures of a creek; sometimes to mindlessly bounce a nymph along the river bottom; sometimes to dap and dance a Royal Wulff on the slick surface of an alpine lake. We all fish for many reasons.

I fish all over the world and meet a lot of anglers. I hear bass fishermen talk as much about hardware and lake structure as they do the rush of fighting their big-lipped prey. I talk to those who go after exotic fish, those who fish in exotic places for any fish, those who hunt trophy fish, some who fish as an excuse to hang out by the water. Some folks fish only once or twice a year, to catch the white perch run or the crappie nesting or the salmonfly hatch or on a pond with their grandkids.

Most every angler dreams of fishing for wild cutts in the cold mountain streams of Yellowstone National Park. Every angler wishes to tighten the line on a monster thousand-pound shark at the end of their bowed rod. Who wouldn’t want to fish the best angling hotspots of the entire world? Land a leaping peacock bass from the Negro River of the Amazon? Flyfish for behemoth 100-pound taimen in the muddy cold waters of Mongolia? Tangle with voracious 150-pound tarpon off the coast of Florida? Or tackle trout in as diverse locations as Spain or Tasmania?

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Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper, fish in the sky, where the bottom is pebbly with stars.
Henry David Thoreau (1854)

Like every other angler I’ve ever fished beside or talked to over a beer, I dream about where to go fishing. The common act of planning? Fishing guidebooks all over the desk or floor. Yellow legal pad. Maps wrinkled and unfolded like multi-colored carpet spread on the floor. You know the drill. Is this the year I fish Alaska? New Zealand? Belize? Montana?

I’ve fished in every state of the Union, fished in countries all over the world for all kinds of species and fished for all those reasons I previously mentioned. No fishing trip is ever like any other, even to the exact same fishing hole. From day to day, the fishing experience changes.

Fishing one spring creek in Pennsylvania is totally different from fishing a spring creek in Montana or in New Zealand or in the Driftless. Fishing an alpine creek in the Sierra Nevada is unlike (but no better or worse) than fishing a high country stream in the Appalachians. Just different. It’s as useless as comparing the quality of the drinking experiences of a boujolais to a burgundy, comparing the colors red to maroon, green to khaki, Chevys to Fords or Ed Wood to Francis Ford Coppola. There exists merit and taste and idiosyncratic elements to each of these. I like hamburgers and I like steak. And so it is with anglers.

That's why I wrote the book, So Many Fish, So LIttle Time: 1001 of the World's Greatest Backcountry Honeyholes, Trout Rivers, Blue Ribbon Waters, Bass Lakes, and Saltwater Hotspots for Harper Collins (992 pages)

You want to buy it from Amazon, go to http://www.amazon.com/Many-Fish-Little-Time-Backcountry/dp/0060882395/sr=8-1/qid=1169420936/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-9067348-7907264?ie=UTF8&s=books

I wanted to share the dreams. The entries, all 1001 of them (actually more, but who's counting?) are meant to inspire anglers to dream. Dream of fishing all kinds of water, all kinds of fish, all kinds of ways to do it. From noodling to flyfishing and everything in between.

Get ahold of this writer at http://web.mac.com/markdamonwilliams/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html and you can see more about the book, find my email address.