Name: Water Lines: A Life on Marshes, Rivers, Seas, and in the Rain
Author: Riverhorse Nakadate
ISBN: 9781952338359

Cover of Water Lines: A Life on Marshes, Rivers, Seas, and in the Rain by Riverhorse Nakadate, published by Patagonia Books

Fly fishing, outdoor adventure, and a deep reverence for water and wilderness converge in Water Lines, the memoir from Patagonia Fly Fishing Ambassador Riverhorse Nakadate.

Across 32 essays, Nakadate moves through Texas salt marshes and coastlines, Colorado alpine lakes, the Boundary Waters of Minnesota, the Yucatán mangroves, the Arctic Circle, Africa, Montana spring creeks, and other wild edges, blending humor, solitude, conservation, and a life lived close to water.

“Bite-sized essays celebrating life, love, and water.”Kirkus Reviews

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Also available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, your local bookstore, and as an audiobook.

AuthorRiverhorse Nakadate
ArtworkSarah L. Stephens
PublisherPatagonia Books
On SaleJune 16, 2026
FormatHardcover · Audiobook
ISBN9781952338359

About the Book

Water Lines: A Life on Marshes, Rivers, Seas, and in the Rain is a memoir in essays about what water gives a person who keeps showing up for it. Riverhorse Nakadate has spent a lifetime traveling alone to the farthest edges of wild country, paddling, wading, surfing, and fly fishing his way through places most people only read about, and this book gathers those miles into stories that are by turns funny, quiet, and fiercely protective of the waters they describe.

Readers of fly fishing literature, nature writing, and conservation essays will find familiar company here: the salt flats of the Texas Gulf Coast, wild redfish and tarpon water, trout streams in Montana and Colorado, the canoe country of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and journeys far beyond the Arctic Circle. The artwork throughout is by Sarah L. Stephens.

Published by Patagonia Books, Water Lines joins a catalog of outdoor writing dedicated to the idea that the best stories about wild places also help save them.