Reel Adventures: Fishing, Fantasy, and Sportswriting, 1890-1910

This article is a study of angling stories appearing in outdoor-sports magazines in the decades around the turn of the twentieth century, tracking the emergence of a new interest in saltwater fishing in Florida and California. American angling stories had long owed as much to James Fenimore Cooper as Izaak Walton, following trails to lonely mountain streams in the Adirondack or Rocky Mountains, but in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific writers discovered new opportunities to introduce sensationalism into stories of strenuous tarpon fishing or the thrilling pursuit of swordfish. Meanwhile, at a time of growing US imperial influence, they contributed to a cultural reimagining of the sea as a site of adventure, of encounters with exoticized peoples, and of natural wonder. Angling stories at this time combined these quite varied cultural impulses, suggesting the importance of the sport for an understanding of a pivotal moment in American history.