When we first launched The Flyfish Journal, our deep and brazen hope was nothing less than a cultural shift in fishing and outdoors writing. We sought to drift apart from how-to-where-to monotony, waxing lodge reviews and attendant grip-and-grin images. Beyond stalking The Great Fish. Beyond an Ishmael Nation in vented back shirts.
Of course, this would depend upon the writers themselves. Who came through in boatloads.
From early pieces by Chris Santella (of blessed memory), to Dylan Tomine, Steve Duda, Cameron Scott and others, we could sense a generational tidal pull. With the path trodden by a previous vanguard: Harrison, McGuane, Dillard, Brautigan, and their ilk, our own nascent group of Left Bank sages picked up and sprinted towards the horizon.
Russell Chatham even subscribed. And continued to resubscribe.
At some point, within this heady mix another voice began to resonate, and often with heart-breaking truths—painful observations of what we continue to heave upon our earth and its waters. But even the grim warnings were carefully wrapped in joyous, riotous missions to lonely gulf marshes, recessed Colorado canyons and arctic Sami tundra.
Riverhorse Nakadate. Photo: Tony Czech
Riverhorse Nakadate fired his opening TFFJ salvo with “Checkout Line” (Vol #3 Issue #3) in 2012, a primal scream in prose: leaving both a lover for mountain streams and beer cans on the shitter. It was lightning for our cumulonimbus community.
Nearly 14 years and perhaps a couple dozen pieces later, Riverhorse’s words, exploits and laughter are woven permanently into TFFJ tapestry. Many of these essays have now, not surprisingly, found their way into book form with Patagonia Books' release of Water Lines: A Life on Marshes, Rivers, Seas, and in the Rain (260 pages). Featuring 32 essays—dodging Yucatan crocodiles at dusk, violent U-turns on Texas two-lanes for another piece of diner peach pie—Water Lines travels the jarring to the intimate in a crooked and glorious path.
While fish and fishing culture figure prominently, Riverhorse shines brightly beyond the genre; Theroux meets Thoreau. And throughout, there is water: “Water is something intangibly special. Deep. All-encompassing. It is most of the earth, and our bodies” (“Big Tex”, pg 123).
The sober realities of our tacit earth failures are engaged head-on—shark-finning massacres (“Sea Glass”) and wilderness trout die-offs (“Half Again”). Yet throughout, a backbeat of optimism pervades. Rugged stoicism often rules outdoor writing, but Riverhorse’s loving anguish over injured squirrels, butterflies, feral cats and turtles feels more Yasunari Kawabata than Zane Grey.
Within the mélange of fireside French roast on lonely Boundary Waters, hidden African surfbreaks and massive brown trout plied from the Idaho high desert, life happens apace—not in spite. While the travels provide watery baptisms and purification rituals, none of it feels escapist. The narrative runs to, not away: Assuaging a close friend over the implosion of his marriage (“Streamlined”), and another, whose beloved wife drifts away with the current and drowns on a Hawaiian vacation (“Big Tex”).
The dive only deepens with “Strawberries and Sundresses”, “A Southern Wish”, and “Rain for the River” as Riverhorse writes of the decline and loss of his mother following a hiking accident in the North Cascades. There is a pained wholeness and completion to these pieces. And while he lays his heart out in the sun alongside his waders, there are also fistfuls of audible laughter. The story of repossessing TFFJ Photo Editor Copi Vojta’s stolen vintage Toyota 4X4 (“Rain for the River”)—armed solely with a 6-wt. case—is worth the cover price alone.
In full disclosure, we clearly love Riverhorse around here. Because of this, I do believe I would lovingly tell him if his book sucked. As it is, Water Lines is a beautiful, beautiful work. Nathaniel Riverhorse Nakadate has stuck a dart into the wind. And like a Texas largemouth, best to just inhale it.
Water Lines: A Life on Marshes, Rivers, Seas, and in the Rain by Riverhorse Nakadate, Patagonia Books, June 2026, 260 pages.