»Fishing means moving cautiously through the reeds, looking out onto the water patiently, and maybe even taking a fish home in the evening. Fishing means hunting, it’s an examination of intuition and basic instincts, and a profound encounter between spirit and nature. But fishing is also the greatest fun and the wildest adventure, you meet wonderful, quirky, and funny people, and you get to know yourself. Fishing has changed my life. There are people, and then there are fishermen. I was one thing and now I am the other.«

A side job at a fishmonger’s leads to a crazy idea: Why not catch your fish yourself? Sitting outside by the lake, with the silence behind you and the sun in your face, holding the fishing line casually—that is how journalist Heike Kottmann imagined fishing. And so, she sat in a stuffy club house for one summer, studied fish species, fishing techniques, spawning seasons, and minimum landing sizes, learned how to club a fish expertly, why the best bait smells of garlic and why it’s best to fish at a trout farm. But not only that—she listened to chubby Fritz’s corny jokes, and ever since then she knows what it means to stake your claim as a young (and often the only) woman in a male domain. With passion, wit, and an explorer’s spirit, Heike Kottmann relates her adventures with fishing rods and landing nets, her fascination with the world under water, and reveals what is probably the most important realization: that in fishing, it’s not always about the catch. Heike Kottmann has got luck on her hook—and is patiently waiting for the next bite …