Nicholas Stevensson Karas is both an ichthyologist and journalist. He attended St. Lawrence and Johns Hopkins universities where he majored in the biological sciences and received his master's degree in journalism from Syracuse University.

He joined the staff of True, then Argosy magazine as outdoors editor. After that, for a decade, he was a full-time freelance writer, traveling throughout the world and producing features for major outdoors magazines. Then, for 25 years, Karas became the staff outdoors columnist for N.Y. Newsday, writing more than 3,500 columns. After retiring, he became a freelance outdoors columnist for the N.Y. Times.

Karas has written 15 books, more than 500 major magazine pieces as well as 3,500 newspaper columns. His book Brook Trout immediately became a classic with trout fishermen throughout the world and has received several awards. In addition, the American Literary Society named it as one of the 10 best books on angling in the English language. Izaak Walton had to make room for him.

“The 458-page second edition so thoroughly covers every aspect of this species,” Karas said, “that no one in their right mind would think of writing another book about book trout.”