The fall has brought another kind review. This one is by Russell Drumm, whose 1997 book In the Slick of the Cricket tells the story of the man who inspired the character Quint in Jaws.

Now this is my idea of a book signing.

Big One fan Lisa Doricchi of Chesapeake City, Md., invited me down to talk to her book club last weekend. Among the members is Christie Chumley, who agreed to host us all on the Mosey, a 70-foot steel-hulled trawler her husband, Ken, has spent the better part of the past decade building. We had wine, fish cakes and perfect weather during the cruise down the Sassafras River.

All the derby talk had people making plans for the fall. Lisa rents a house on Vineyard with a group of friends for the tournament every year. It sounds like she may need to rent something larger than usual, or else pitch some tents out back.

(Thanks to Ken Chumley for the photo from the crow’s nest.)

Lev and Leadbelly, 2007.

Lev Wlodyka, the islander whose trials and tribulations drive the central storyline in my book, had a better derby in 2008. Exactly one year after he caught a 57-pound striped bass that brought him so much grief (see Chapter 5: Leadbelly), Lev went out on the water with a couple of buddies who are talented anglers in their own right, stonemasons Nick Warburton and Morgan Child. The trio tracked down a school of hungry stripers, and turned up at the weigh station with one big fish apiece.

Lev’s friends say he’s touched with luck when it comes to the derby, and that was true this night. Nick’s fish came in at 41 pounds, while Morgan’s weighed 46.74. Lev’s fish? 46.82. He slid into first place by eight hundredths of a pound, and in a year of otherwise slow fishing, he held on to win the derby for the sixth time in a decade.

Check out the photographs here, courtesy of The Martha’s Vineyard Times and Louisa Gould.

His stepfather lived a colorful life of his own. Luther Madison worked as an arborist, scalloper and school bus driver. He baked the pies for the Aquinnah Shop, the family restaurant. And for 36 years he served as chief medicine man for the island’s Wampanoag tribe. He passed away last week at 84, and according to the story in today’s Vineyard Gazette, his final words were befitting a sachem: “My beautiful sunset is coming.”

A few months later, I learned that his wife, Wendy, had been diagnosed with brain cancer and faced months of intensive treatment. Obviously, I thought, this was not the year to talk to them about something as insignificant as a fishing tournament. But I discovered that in between Wendy’s treatments, Patrick was taking his son, Wyatt, out to fish the derby, and to my surprise, when I ran into him on the dock in Menemsha one day, he generously invited me to go along. The chapter I wrote about fishing with the Jenkinsons illustrates how integral the derby is in some islanders’ lives: During their months of turmoil, fishing made everything seem normal for Patrick, Wyatt and Wendy, if only for a few hours.

Wendy died nine months later. A few days later, I noticed that her husband had just caught a 41-pound striped bass, one of the biggest of his life. I knew the story of that fish would have to be special to Patrick, and when I came calling again, he graciously shared it with me. The piece appears today in the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.

I’ll serve up fresh stories about the derby and Martha’s Vineyard. I’ll watch for intelligence about the four great fish everybody in the book is chasing: striped bass, bluefish, false albacore and bonito. And I’ll be on the lookout for the weird, the wonderful and the borderline illegal in the sprawling world of competitive fishing. I encourage visitors to click on “Share Your Stories” and pass along your own tales in the same vein. I’ll read them all, and post the most interesting here.

Superfans of The Big One can also watch this space for news about the book: reviews, events, movie talk and the like.

So thanks for stopping by, and please check back again.