A Field Guide to Coastal Fishes: From Maine to Texas
I was surprised to discover just how comprehensive and well-illustrated this book is. Good field guides don’t come along too often... But this one covers well over 1,000 species and includes everything you’re likely to encounter from the coastal bays out to 200 meter (660 foot) deep waters. Flip through, and you’ll discover species you didn’t imagine existed (the Atlantic Spiney Lumpfish? The Freckled Driftfish?) as well as the ones you know and love... to catch!(Lenny RudowBoater Mouth)This book is a wonderful identification guide... It will make an excellent addition to any tying library both for its detailed baitfish illustrations as well as a tool for catch identification and research.(Stuart PattersonFlorida Fly Fishing Magazine)A Field Guide to Coastal Fishesis a resource that shouldn't be overlooked for any student of marine life.(Midwest Book Review)This is a substantial improvement on the Peterson Field Guide... Val Kells’s illustrations are vivid and beautiful. The comprehensiveness of this text, along with the amount of detail in both illustration and text, are impressive. For these reasons, along with the very reasonable price, I would recommend this book to my colleagues in the scientific community, as well as to my fishing and diving companions.(Bulletin of Marine Science)This comprehensive field guide to the marine and brackish water fishes of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts is as well executed as it is accurate.(Mariner)Significant and news worthy... comprehensive and compact...A Field Guide to Coastal Fishesis a must have book for any serious angler.(Coastal Angler Magazine)You would be hard pressed to find a more comprehensive, beautifully illustrated, and well organized book thanA Field Guide to Coastal Fishes: From Maine to Texasand I highly recommend it for anyone interested in marine life.(Mark WatanabeYakAngler.com)Quite comprehensive, and the illustrations are marvelous!(Aqua-Notes)A must for anyone fishing the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the U.S.... it is a great reference for the coffee table, boat or tackle box.(International Angler)A must-have for any person interested in fish from the US Atlantic coastal region. Highly recommended.(Choice)Exquisite color illustrations... A great reference that is accessible for a wide audience.(Caleb D. McMahanCopeia)The overview of diversity and classification of marine fish provided by the authors will be an asset to both the fishery biologist and layperson interested in coastal marine fishes and I highly recommend the text to anyone interested in marine fisheries.(Fred J. BrennerBIOS)A compact and wide-ranging resource; truly, a labor of love. The product of over 15 years of research from conception to publication, it is the first comprehensive field guide to the fish of the marine and brackish waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts to be published in more than 25 years... I highly recommend this book.(Beth HesterVirginia Wildlife Magazine)Val is a well-known scientific illustrator—she paints those painfully accurate fish for scientific books. And one of her books,A Field Guide to Coastal Fishes from Maine to Texas, has shown me, for hour after painful hour, exactly how many species I have not caught in the Atlantic. This sort of thing makes me lose a lot of sleep.(Steve WozniakSport Fishing)If you haven't seen this publication, it is by far the best guide I've ever seen for fishes of this region with 100% original color illustrations which are large enough for easy comparison. In addition, the diagnostic characteristics are on the opposing page, not far away in the text.(Ron KernehanAmerican Fisheries Society)Sized to fit inside the tackle-box, center console, dive bag, tote, or back-pack... If you’ve seen or caught a fish anywhere along the coast from Maine to Texas, from shallow inshore bays to offshore depths of about 660 feet, it is most likely identified here.(Reid Martin)A Field Guide to Coastal Fisheswill soon become my go to reference book. Val Kells and Kent Carpenter have combined their talents and wealth of experience to produce an accurate, easy-to-use field guide that clearly explains and shows a reader how to correctly identify coastal fishes. This book is a must have item for anyone who works with or has an interest in fish, fishing, and the marine environment. After seeing this book, I’ve discovered I need two copies; one for my office and one for my boat!(Joe Malat, Joe Malat Communications)Magnificent book. Thank you Val and Kent for this labor of extraordinarily detailed, painstaking and accurate artwork/scientific illustration inseparable. It is the go-to reference of images and complementary text.(John Karges, The Nature Conservancy, Texas Chapter)A fresh splash of well-designed, beautifully illustrated information in a field-friendly book.(Carl Safina, author ofSong for the Blue Ocean)What a marvelous piece of work! I have used it to identify fish that I prepared as skeletons for the Smithsonian. Everyone connected with the production of the book deserves the heartiest congratulations. Val Kells must surely be one of the best scientific illustrators of all time.(Storrs Olson, Smithsonian Institution)