Among the rash of recent book publications in the flyfishing world, I can’t think of any that have featured photography so prominently as No Do-Overs in Paradise, the recent collection of Stephen Collector’s hunting and fishing stories published by Ice Cube Press. It’s to be expected, I suppose. Collector is a professional photographer with decades of editorial and creative work under his belt, that rare sporting creative who has a way with both words and images.
Indeed, my introduction to Collector came by way of images. He emailed me. I looked at his website. There I found images from a 1988 assignment that took him to Key West, where he tagged along with writer Jim Fergus for a story about their “literary and artistic idols”: Russel Chatham, Tom McGuane, Jim Harrison and Guy de la Valdène. Intrigued by the discovery, I asked Collector if there was a story there—something about the experience of being a fly on the wall in these guys’ company. There was a story indeed, and it’s included in this collection along with several of the photos from that late ‘80s assignment.
Stephen Collector. Photo: Nick Price.
All of which is to say, you never know where a story is going to come from. I may have instigated that one, but spend any amount of time with Collector’s words and you realize he must have narratives humming along in his mind all the time. He’s the kind of sporting writer who, as famed editor Terry McDonell writes in his introduction to the book, feels “compelled to write about their time afield, as if the day isn’t complete without reflection.”
The stories here—spanning four sections, one for each season, accompanied by nearly 80 of Collector’s images taken between 1977 and 2024—run the gamut from day-trip soliloquies (both hunting and fishing), to travelogues, to reflections on the likes of John Gierach and Richard Brautigan. His long career as a freelancer, with contributions to a number of flyfishing publications as well as Outside, Men’s Journal and Esquire, among others, provide a sort of through line. In “f8 and Be there: Or Things I Learned from Fly-Fishing and 40 years as a Hook-and-Bullet Photographer,” he shares a handful of lessons from his many years outdoors, and his friend and colleague, the above-mentioned Jim Fergus, makes a handful of appearances.
Jeff Smith with fly rods, Ohio Key, Florida, 2022. Photo: Stephen Collector.
But this is not a book of reminiscence, easy as it would be for Collector to stick to that path given the characters he’s spent time with over the years and the places he’s spent time with them. In “Alaska, the First Time,” he travels to the last frontier for, well, the first time—at age 67. The story is subtle and poignant, beginning with a simple question. “Why had it taken me so long to get here?” he asks himself.
“I had always told myself it was purely economic, reflected monthly in my bank statement,” he writes. “But it wasn’t that simple.” It never is, and Collector’s brief conversation with another sport while awaiting a floatplane drives that point home, as does his single recollection of fishing with his father when young. He finally settles on the best answer he can find: “If the reason for my lifelong obsession with fishing was a paternal void, so be it. As a father, I’d learned from my father’s omission. It wasn’t important anymore. My son’s generous gift had gotten me to Alaska, and Pop, though he’d never know it, had picked up the tab.”
John Gierach, upper Middle Fork St. Vrain River, CO. Photo: Stephen Collector.
Collector is well aware of sporting’s literary tradition. It’s evident in the 33 essays collected here, in their dialogue with the writers, guides and other outdoors compatriots who provided the foundation and inspiration for Collector’s work over the years. But also in the clear path he’s carved out for himself, a path based on observation, curiosity and, I think, a dedication to keeping things simple, avoiding the overblown and highfalutin. It’s a characteristic one sees in the photography as well—no tricks, just quiet landscapes and quiet moments with friends new and old and, in some cases, his heroes.
No Do-Overs in Paradise: Journeys Through Wild Places and Inner Landscapes. By Stephen Collector. Ice Cube Press. 320 pages.