A book to hook you

Big Game Fishing Headquarters

A History of the IGFA

Mike Rivkin

IGFA Press: 240 pp., $50

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This is a mighty marlin of a book -- lavish in size, beautiful to gaze upon and fascinating to contemplate.

The International Game Fish Assn., IGFA, is the record-keeper of big game fishing -- actually of all kinds of fishing, but the organization’s heart has always been in salt water.

The book details the history of the 66-year-old association and the half-century of pioneering big game sportfishing that led to its creation, curiously enough, beginning here in the waters between Los Angeles and Catalina.

The characters and settings are glamorous: Hemingway, for instance, was a vice president. The illustrations are memorable, many of them evoking a nostalgic era when sport was adventure unencumbered by controversy.

The text, by La Jolla fisherman Mike Rivkin, reflects a profound love of the topic and a trove of research.

One may lament that saltwater fishermen felt compelled to burden their sport with elaborate competition, and that their leaders were slow to assume the obligations of catch-and-release conservation, but this book is observation, not advocacy.

It is a high-seas, salt-licked, sun-in-the-eyes history of a passionate pastime that has absorbed adventurers for more than a century.

Available in limited edition only from IGFA: (954) 924-4310 or www.igfa.org.

-- John Balzar