The following is an excerpt from Trout, by Tom Rosenbauer, featuring photography by Brian Grossenbacher and a foreword by Callan Wink. The book was published by Rizzoli New York.

Wading provides time to enjoy some silence and focus on the task at hand, catching trout.

If you value solitude on the river, wading is really the only way to enjoy a day without any interactions with creatures other than fish or the occasional mammal that sneaks down to the water to drink. 

It’s an opportunity to have a chat with yourself, as I often direct myself to a new pool or question my fly selection and then answer it without listening to someone else’s suggestion. You might argue that you can find solitude by rowing a driftboat or inflatable by yourself, but the problem is that if a river is wide enough to float a watercraft, there will be limited access points and other boats, so the chance of a day without at least exchanging greetings with other humans is unlikely. There are few secret rivers with ample water to float, at least ones with decent trout fishing.

It’s all on you. You’ll either make it happen or you won’t, but careful wading through a pool without disturbing the water, watching a trout feed and gauging its mood and rhythm, and then planning your approach by analyzing every angle have kept me obsessed for a lifetime. From a boat, it seems like you’re always running down the fish, trying to apply the breaks when you see one feeding, oars whirling and creating unnatural wakes until you drop anchor, if the current allows. And when the boat comes to a stop, I’m never happy with the angle and positioning.

“Every step is a new adventure,” says author Tom Rosenbauer.

Those of us who have been around the fishing world for a while remember the days when nearly everyone waded, and floating was a rare treat. I used to fish the Missouri River with legendary guide Paul Roos, and we might have seen three other driftboats on a July day. I remember the very first driftboat on the Delaware River. It was owned by a guy I knew who ran a tackle shop, and when I saw him drifting around the bend, I felt violated. I knew it was the beginning of the end for the river as we knew it. In those days, if you wanted solitude, even on a river a couple hours from New York City, you could have it if you wanted to walk the railroad tracks for a mile. When you went to a pool with no one in it, you knew that entire half-mile stretch of river was yours. You were free to roam up to the head to fish the riffles during the day, and move to the middle or the tail of the pool at dusk to catch the spinner fall. Now, if you move to the riffle, you risk having three driftboats parked in the tail the next time you turn around. You find yourself listening for the clank of oars or loud voices around the bend instead of listening to the water or cocking an ear to hear rises.

Although today I need to adjust my strategy to find solitude, I’m not complaining. The emphasis on trout fishing from a boat leaves plenty of water free from other anglers and inner tubes because it’s too narrow, shallow or remote. People who think our rivers are too overcrowded get that perception because they insist on floating, and the number of rivers optimal for floating are a tiny fraction of the streams that hold populations of trout. Any trout stream too small to float a driftboat or an inner tube will offer you tranquility, except if you’re an hour from Denver or Bozeman. And even on rivers full of driftboats, with a strategy in your back pocket you can have — relative — solitude and decent wade fishing.

There’s something tranquil about fishing from your own two feet, rather than from a boat.

You can plan your strategy around put-ins and take-outs, which are the same location depending on the time of day. In the morning, you park at the put-in and then work upstream. Nothing pleases me more than seeing all that commotion — guides waiting for other boats to use the ramp, finally getting the boat into the water and driving to park. The anglers stand around waiting, looking useless and confused, because the last thing most guides want is help with the boat. That usually results in fingers tweaked in the winch. Meanwhile, if you’re wading, you stroll off upstream, ready to fish without any added drama. You’re free for the day to do whatever you want, and by staying upstream of the boat ramp, you’ll have relative peace until the flotilla of boats that launched miles upstream finally arrives at the end of the day. And if you still have energy left and want to fish into the evening, by fishing downstream of the boat ramp, you will again enjoy unspoiled water because all the boats will pull out above you at the end of their day.

Wading itself is a skill to be mastered. Navigating a tricky river under your own power — with the pull of a strong current eddying around your legs, immersed in the environment as much as a human can be without putting on a wetsuit and snorkel — is a sensation that never gets tedious. Every step is a new adventure. And don’t share this with my wife, but the feeling that no one in the world knows where I am — I leave my phone in the car — is a liberty I’m not willing to sacrifice until I get too wobbly to trust myself on slippery boulders.

Through storytelling and stunning photography, Trout takes readers on a journey to the most iconic trout waters — without getting wet.