Madison River Country: a Historical Fly-fishing Novel

Description

In Snake River Country, a star high school football player, Stiff Stonebreaker, graduates from high school and spends the summer months working at the Railroad Ranch in Island Park, Idaho on the North Fork of the Snake River. This first book loosely encompassed a time frame in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Stiff is a handsome, accomplished fly fisherman. His adventures and misadventures are many. History, anecdotes and pure fiction are combined for a historical novel that was entertaining and informative to those buying out the first printing in less than a year.

Madison River Country is a continuation of Stiff's life after graduating from college. His football team was proclaimed number one in the country and Stiff was nominated as an All American quarterback.

The summer months before he plays professional football are spent on the Madison River in Yellowstone Park, Wyoming and southwestern Montana. Stiff meets and fishes with many of the famous Madison River fly fishermen and guides.

Again, history and fiction are mixed for an entertaining saga of Stiff Stonebreaker, the fly fisherman.

WHAT THE EXPERTS ARE SAYING:
"Imagine an authentic fly-fishing history of the Madison River Valley, coupled with a modern melodrama that has real villains, and an all-American, football-playing, fish-releasing good guy, and a couple of hapless heroines. This highly improbable marriage of fact and fancy somehow works. What's more--it's fun!"
-- Mel Krieger, Club Pacific, San Francisco, California

"Framed by breathtaking landscapes which highlight the West's most popular trout stream, <Madison River Country allows Sid Eliason's previously introduced football star, Stiff Stonebreaker from Snake River Country to sidestep, cast, kiss and punch his way through the last best flyfishing years of Montana. As both a creditable historian and temporary curator of Montana flyfishing lore, Eliason weaved real life legends like Bud Lilly, Tom Morgan, Dick McGuire and Pat Barnes into 244 entertaining pages. Fans of western and Yellowstone history served with heaps of flyfishing tidbitism (bet you'll recognize some places and flies!) will find this second novel of the author's planned trilogy entertaining."
-- Paul Bruun, Outdoor columnist, Jackson Hole News, Jackson, Wyoming

"The book <Madison River Country expresses an era beginning with Don Martines of West Yellowstone and Otis Crooks of Ennis. Fishermen visiting the area were recognized to be important to the tourish industry. This interest in the Madison River resulted in wild trout management and special regulations.
You have very accurately identified the major palyers in this drama and the part that each has played. I was thrilled to be part of that era. To be included in your book as you have portrayed the events is equally thrilling."
-- Bud Lilly, Bozeman, Montana