Casting Onward: Fishing Adventures in Search of America's Native Gamefish

Hardcover, 262 Pages.

A continuation and expansion of Casting Forward

In writing this book, author, naturalist, and educator Steve Ramirez traveled thousands of miles by plane, motor vehicle, boat, and foot. Each chapter includes his fishing with a notable person in the worlds of fishing and conservation. His fishing partners in this book include Bob White, Chris Wood, Kirk Deeter (and many other leaders within Trout Unlimited), Ted Williams of The Native Fish Coalition, Matthew Miller, and John Karges of The Nature Conservancy, and many more.

In the course of this journey, Ramirez explores and fishes mountain streams, alpine lakes, National Wild and Scenic Rivers, desert canyons, brackish water estuaries, and the rolling ocean off the coast of Cape Cod. About half of this book was written while traveling through the COVID-19 pandemic and it touches on the lessons that COVID can teach us about nature and human nature.

In Casting Onward, the author expands beyond the geographical scope of Casting Forward by fishing for native fish within their original habitats across American. Each story is told in part through the eyes of the people who have lived alongside and come to love, these waters and fish. Woven throughout these adventures are the stories of the people he meets and befriends while pursuing a mutual love of nature and the best of human nature, as the first criterion for finding common ground.

This is a hopeful story, in an all-too-often seemingly hopeless time. It is a story of fishing and friendship. It is a story of humanity’s impact on nature, and nature’s impact on humanity.

Excerpt — Prologue
This is a story about reimagining how nature and humanity can live together, from this moment onward. Everything is created twice: first in our imaginations and then in our realities. Once we can imagine and envision the way the world “should be” and “can be,” we can act on that vision, like raindrops on limestone, drop by drop, building a canyon and filling a sea. Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.

In my first book, Casting Forward, I wrote of my love for my Texas Hill Country homeland and homewaters, and of my determination to find the best in human nature within myself and others. I wrote of my concerns for my homeland, community, and world, and of my hopeful optimism about the resilience of nature and humanity. I wrote of the healing and teaching powers of nature and the need for all of humanity to reconnect with our one and only true home.

Casting Onward is a continuation and expansion of my first work. When I set out to write this book, my original plan was to travel across North America, connecting with and learning about these native gamefish within their historical range and natural habitat. I planned to learn about them and their watersheds and what that could teach me about the state of our nation’s environment, both human and non-human. And I decided that I would tell these stories through the eyes of the people who live within the watersheds where each native fish originates, and currently clings to existence.

I could never have known that this adventure would become so much more than I had ever imagined.