While the nor'easter hovered over Maine earlier in the week, a copy of "Trout Eyes" by New Hampshire author William G. Tapply arrived at my home, a superb collection of 28 fishing essays. What a merry twist of fate to have an excellent read for such a foul week of weather, one of those books that ended far too soon.

Many fishing essays have weak plots with unmemorable endings, but Tapply weaves an intricate storyline with a surprise conclusion, reflecting his talents as a successful novelist. I cannot emphasize the pleasure this book gave me as rain flew parallel to the ground and pelted my windowpanes.

The last fishing title that impressed me as much was "The Longest Silence" by Tom McGuane, a Montana writer. That claim puts Tapply in excellent company because, in my humble opinion, McGuane ranks as one of America's finer essay writers and mainstream novelists. McGuane caught critics' attention way back in 1973 with "Ninety-Two in the Shade," a Key West novel about a flats guide, and he's been at it ever since.

McGuane differs from Tapply, though, because McGuane's fishing essays exude a definite irreverence much of the time. On the other hand, Tapply has a mom-and-apple-pie quality equally as appealing as the shock treatment McGuane gives readers.

Both writers poke fun at fly-fishing purists, but the Montana Irishman has a scathing edge. Tapply has a more prankish approach to his merriment with the Sage-Simms set.

Tapply, the son of the late Tap Tapply of Field and Stream magazine fame, is Professor of English and Writer in Residence at Clark University. His Brady Coyne mystery novels, 22 in all, have enjoyed success with a wide audience. I've read many of them.

In "Trout Eyes," Tapply writes clear, concise prose with short, crisp images that put the reader with him across North and South America, including stops from Patagonia to Labrador. In addition to exotic destinations, many stories in "Trout Eyes" take place on tiny New England brooks because this man has a special fondness for intimate home waters.

And so do I. Earlier in the week, as the storm raged, I've been fishing with Tapply in print, and each brook-fishing essay made me think, "Been there, done that." He made me long for late April and early May when my brooks start producing consistently.

Like Tapply, I have had the amazing good fortune to fish storied places far from New England, places from the Central American jungles in Costa Rica to the subarctic in northern Quebec with plenty of stops between, including the American West. I too have a soft spot for brooks, mostly little streams east of Augusta where I grew up.

Woodland pools and runs have a charm impossible to duplicate on rivers where seeing other anglers is common. I particularly like brooks in the shadows of civilization where no human tracks or beverage cans mar the landscape, waters where the tiny trout feel cold and hard in the hand, muscular specimens with no hatchery genes, relatives of trout that my ancestors caught three and four generations ago.

For me, "Trout Eyes" has another appeal: Tapply grew up pretty much as I did, fishing small brooks with a 3-piece, bamboo fly rod with worms. This prepared both of us for nymphing because we weighted our wiggling offering with a split shot and drifted the bait to the waiting "mawlets" of wild brookies. It was a short step from drifting worms to our first attempts at working nymph such as a Wooly Worm, Zug Bug or Hare's Ear.

Tapply's book, a fun, fun read, comes from Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 555 Eighth Ave., Suite 903, New York, NY 10018; www.skyhorsepublishing.com.

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This past week, posters on a message board called "As Maine Goes" commented on my last column that briefly mentioned a new group, called Restore SAM. Some posters accused me of being anti-right wing, and one guy claimed my use of "right wing" was name calling rather than description.

One misologist on the board claimed that if I were king, I'd force everyone to hunt with a flintlock, recurve bow or bolt-action rifle (depending on the season) and to fish with barb-less dry flies and never kill fish. I wonder where these message-board participants get such ideas.

For the record, and as I have described here and elsewhere many times, I hunt with a percussion-cap Hawken replica (not a flintlock) in the muzzle-loader season, a Jennings T-Star compound (not a recurve) in bow season and a slide action or auto-loading firearm in some hunting seasons, depending on the critter hunted. (I choose a slide action for ducks and an auto-loader for gray squirrels.)

I'm not sure where this misologist got the bright idea that I never keep fish because the very column he complained about included a comment about killing sea-run brookies.

Like most people, including even the most dedicated member of organizations like Trout Unlimited, I may kill the occasional trout, but I fish nearly every day for part of the season. It's imperative that I release most of my catch, or other anglers fishing after me may suffer. To paraphrase the late, great Lee Wulff, a trout is too valuable to catch but once.

Ken Allen, of Belgrade Lakes, is a writer, editor and photographer. E-mail: kallyn800@aol.com.