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Title: A Field Guide to Atlantic Coast Fishes : North America (Peterson Field Guides)
ISBN: 0395975158
Author:
Carleton Ray
C. Richard Robins
Publicate Date: 1999-03-01
Publish: 1999-03-01
List Price: $20.00
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $11.01
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $10.49
Amazon Merchant Price: $13.60
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Great guide...not so durable binding.
This is a great field guide. Though some would like full color illustrations, variablility in coloration occurs quite often in fish depending on habitat and other factors. The text descriptions are quite clear. The only complaint I have, is the binding isn't very sturdy. I'm on my 4th copy! My field guides go into the field (or in this case on the boat)where the elements will take their toll very quickly on poorly constructed material.
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2: A Field guide for large fish only
This is a field Identification book, If you really want to know what you caught, you need better literature. When you catch smaller fish species, many of the key features listed for them do not pertain to your catch. That, and the book is built to fall apart, with the plates in the center of the book struggling to freedom within a year.
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3: Not your typical Peterson Guide
I have a few Peterson Guides (such as one for birds, and one for reptiles and amphibians) and I swear by them. I have always been able to count on Peterson Guides to provide detailed color illustrations with clearly defined identifying marks. This guide was a huge disappointment. The majority of the illustration plates are in black and white! I have no idea what possessed the editors to settle for a grayscale version from a guide series so well known for its colorful illustrations! (Wish I'd read the review below mine before I purchased this!)
The few color illustration plates are excellent as is usual for Peterson Guides. Even the black and white images are very well drawn (but tremendously less helpful than their color counterparts). The descriptions of each species are generally well-written and helpful, though not as extensive as the descriptions in other Peterson Guides.
In short, you won't find this guide to be totally useless, but it would be worth looking around for (and probably not hard to find) something better. It's clear to me that the Peterson editors either (a.) have a distinct bias towards terrestrial animals and don't care much for ichthyology, or (b.) were in a great rush to finish this guide quickly at the expense of quality. Whatever the explanation, one thing is for sure: the negligence apparent in the making of this guide is very out of character for Peterson.
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4: A Field guide to Atlantic Coast Fishes
We were disappointed in this particular guide. We have Peterson bird guides that are great but the fishes guide is mostly black and white images and many varieties of fish had no image at all. Written information was available for all species.
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5: Good reference book
This is a pretty good book for identifying the different species of fish, and giving a very brief overview of each species mentioned. however, with 1100 species packed into one book, the descriptions are brief, and the advertised information like temperature and salinity are not listed for all of the species - in fact I would say water temperature and depth are not listed for most.
75% of the illustrations are full color and are very good. however, the rest are black and white sketches, which make identification by sight pretty difficult. Even on those though, the identifying features are pointed out where appropriate.
Overall I would recommend this book to anyone interested in identifying fish of the Atlantic Coast. If you're a fisherman looking for information on habitat, water temperatures, depth, etc - you might need some other books in addition to this one.
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