Dances with Trout

The steps of this dance will be familiar to Gierach fans: wry, just-might-be-true fishing reports from road trips, river floats and Rocky Mountain hikes, set to the rhythms of a restrained, good-natured polka. This collection of 18 witty pieces, most of which appeared originally in his column for Sports Afield , could have been titled ``Dances with Salmon, Deer and Texas Bass and Cha-Chas with Grouse All Over the Place.'' Gierach relates more hunting adventures here than in such earlier collections as Sex, Death and Fly-Fishing ; the salmon story relates a full-dress British ritual expedition in Scotland, in which Gierach comes across a little like Ralph Cramden on a PGA tour. Most of these pieces demonstrate the author's low-key storytelling style, which occasionally strains, perhaps under the pressure of producing a regular column. Fans will rate this collection somewhere below his classic Where the Trout Are All as Long as Your Leg. (Apr.)