CLOSE TO THE SURFACE: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF 50 YEARS OF BIG GAME FISHING IN THE AZORES. By Greet Wouters.

ND (2000) 1st edition. Square 4to (253 x 297mm). Pp240. Colour and b/w photgraphs and illustrations throughout, bibliography. Blue cloth, colour plate tipped-on to upper board, spine untitled.

A large coffee-table book giving a fifty year history, illustrated throughout with good colour photographs, of big game fishing in the Azores. Privately published by the author, only 1500 copies were printed. Now quite hard-to-find and highly sought-after. "Close to the Surface is about fish, fishermen, fisheries, bigger fish, no fish, record fish... It is a walkabout through several decades of sportfishing in the Azores with a focus on the visual. It is a 50-year chronological tour with loads of incidental stops. It is a stroll through traces, memories and souvenirs of sportfishing. It is a visit to the gallery of world records made in the islands. It is looking through my own glasses at a passion I have tried to understand; it is also an attempt to find the logic behind this search for the probably unobtainable."