India is halfway around the world from the U.S., plenty of time to reread Jim Corbett's "Man-Eaters of Kumaon," the book that started the dream of India for me when I was a boy.

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On The Hunt for Himalayan Mahseer by Keith McCafferty

Fishing for mahseer in the Himalayas doesn't begin with a cast. First, you have to hike through the cliffs of the Sarda Gorge, where the slipping of a foothold can cost you your life. Then you have to walk past the tiger in the night.

But even that's not going back far enough, for India is a land of dreams, and any trip that takes you here begins as a dream. Nearly all my life, since I first read Jim Corbett's "Man-Eaters of Kumaon," I have wanted to travel to the Himalayan foothills in northern India. As a boy, my dream was to see a tiger, nothing more. Then it was to follow Corbett's footsteps as he hunted a man-eater, to see with my own eyes the country he so vividly painted in words. Finally, my dream expanded to include fishing for India's great migratory gamefish, the golden mahseer.