My fishing was confined to a small creek that ran through the back of our place. In those far-off times, the legal
limit was twenty-one trout. Although I had heard people speak of "limiting out", I never really believed them. It
was an achievement beyond comprehension, like somebody running a four minute mile, or walking on the moon.
Patrick F. McManus
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In our family, there was no clear line between fishing and religion.
Norman Maclean
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The literature of angling falls into two genres; the instructional and the devotional. The former is written by
fishermen who write, the latter by writers who fish.
William Humphrey
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Soon after I embraced the sport of angling I became convinced that I should never be able to enjoy it if I had to
rely on the cooperation of fish. Fortunately, I learned long ago that although fish do make a difference (the
difference) in angling, catching them does not.
Sparse Grey Hackle
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Over the years, whenever I felt that little twinkle in the hairs on the back of my neck, as I encountered an original
thought or observation in a fishing book, I've turned the corner of the page down.
Arnold Gingrich
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I have laid aside business, and gone a-fishin'.
Izaak Walton
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The number and excellence of books devoted to the exposition of Angling are so great that no other sport can
compare with it in these respects.
James Robb
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Anyone who can tie his shoes without tipping over can and will learn to cast a rather good line.
Bill Cairns
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As far as I know, I am the only living human being who has ever caught a fish in the Seine River within the city
limits of Paris.
Ed Zern
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There is no monopoly on courage. It is the quality of courage found in fish that leads men to fish for them. And it
is something of the same quality in man himself that keeps him wading bravely through swift waters even when
the hour is late and shadows are closing in around him.
Steve Raymond
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....a trout fisherman is something that defieth understanding.
Corey Ford and Alastair MacBain
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No fish will ever give you the same thrill as your first good trout.
Ray Bergman
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There are as many reasons why and ways to fish as there are people who do it.
Russell Chatham
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Good fishing never stops. There are only times when in some places it is better than in others.
George Fichter
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Fishing is a quest for knowledge and wonder as much as a pursuit of fish; it is as much an acquaintance with
beavers, dippers and other fishermen as it is the challenge of catching trout.
Paul Schullery
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The fisherman fishes as the urchin eats a cream bun - from lust.
T. H. White
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I can remember the first trout I ever caught as an adult (which was also the first I ever caught on a fly)...My hands
trembled wildly as I took that fish off the hook.
David Quammen
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And another thing that makes it easier to ice fish is that one need not worry about his backcasts.
Arthur R. MacDougall
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The world of angling is richly diverse...It elicits some of the sweetest and deepest qualities in man - and,
occasionally, some of the worst. It can be coolly dispassionate, lyrical or maddeningly intense.
Nick Lyons
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I have learned not to go crazy if I hike for awhile only to find someone in my private water.
Steven Meyers
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Calling fishing a hobby is like calling brain surgery a job.
Paul Schullery
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It is a simple question with a seemingly simple answer. "Why do you live in Montana?" ..."The trout", you
answer...
David Quammen
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If, as I suspect, trout fishing is something of a disease, then it is also something of a therapy in itself.
Tom Sutcliffe M.D.
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One of the greatest joys of a fishing trip...is in the memories of special events which occurred, mulled over weeks,
months or even years later in front of a blazing fire, with a drink and a pipe in hand. In fact, I think that it is in
anticipation of such evenings that many people go on fishing trips in the first place.
Loring D. Wilson
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I fish all the time when I'm at home; so when I go on vacation, I make sure to get in plenty of fishing.
Thomas McGuane
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The luckiest salmon fishermen are those who can fish for at least a week at a time and who fish year after year in
order to average out.
Lee Wulf
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The Carp is the queen of rivers - a stately, a good and a very subtle fish.
Izaak Walton
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For years my fly-casting technique was compared, rather banally I might add, to an old lady fighting off a bee with
a broom handle.
Patrick F. McManus
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No trout, except possibly a very old, very heavy, very wise trout, fights like a large carp.
Steven J. Meyers
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A friend....once made the heartening observation. It is always easy to say something pleasant about fishing.
Charles E. Goodspeed
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Every day I see the head of the largest trout I ever hooked, but did not land.
Theodore Gordon (1914)
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I fish because I love to...
Robert Traver
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Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics that it can never fully be learnt...
Izaak Walton
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Fish like an artist and per adventure a good fish may fall to your share.
Charles Cotton
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The fishing is far more important than the fish.
Arnold Gingrich
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There is no substitute for fishing sense and if a man doesn't have it. verily, he may cast like an angel and still use
his creel largely to transport sandwiches and beer.
Robert Traver
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I get all the truth I need in the newspaper every morning, and every chance I get I go fishing, or swap stories with
fishermen, to get the taste of it out of my mouth.
Ed Zern
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But ah, to fish with a worm, and then not catch your fish! To fail with a fly is no disgrace: your art may have been
impeccable, your patience faultless to the end. But the philosophy of worm fishing is that of results, of having
something tangible in your basket when the day's work is done.
Bliss Perry
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Fish: the only living creature in any given stretch of stream, river, lake or bay that doesn't have a hook in it and
isn't smoking a pipe.
Henry Beard and Roy McKie
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The legend of the trout's sagacity....arises from man's conceit. If the trout can outwit us, the lords of creation,
then he must be superior to us in cunning.
P.B.M. Allan
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There is certainly something in angling that tends to produce a gentleness of spirit and a pure serenity of mind.
Washington Irving
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Fishing seemed to be the one sport which best gratified that innate craving for an intimacy with those forces of
which I knew so little. Is it any wonder that I made the study of fishing my life's work?
Ray Bergman
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Fly-fishers fail in preparing their bait so as to make it alluring in the right quarter, for want of a due acquaintance
with the subjectivity of fishes.
George Eliot
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I leaned back in the seat of the truck and sighed with satisfaction. I had taken the years first fish, taken it just the
way I would have wished, and it was bound to be a good year.
Steve Raymond
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On fly fishing - When I want to use a bug for bait I simply turn over a large rock and I have a wide smorgasbord
to choose from. I will select my bug according to the fish I wish to catch.
Ken Marlow
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In 1918 I realized that the growing use of the automobile, with it's easy transportation, would soon spoil all public
trout fishing...
Edward R. Hewitt
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The true fisherman approaches the first day of fishing with all the sense of wonder and awe of a child approaching
Christmas. There is the same ecstatic counting of the days; the same eager and palpitant preparations; the same
loving drafting of lists...
Robert Traver
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No angler merely watches nature in a passive way. He enters into it's very existence.
John Bailey
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People often ask me why I enjoy fishing, and I cannot explain it to them because there is no reason in the way
they want meanings described. They are asking a man why he enjoys breathing when he really has no choice but
to wonder at its truth.
A.J. McClane
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Knowing a river intimately is a very large part of the joy of fly fishing.
Roderick L. Haig-Brown
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I stared at that unexpected bouquet of orange and green and white as if I had been hypnotized. I was suddenly a
kid again, and if I had been struck dead at that very moment I probably would have said "brook trout" the way
Orson Welles said "Rosebud" in Citizen Kane.
E. Donnall Thomas, Jr.
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