Home | Quotes
Fishing quotes and thoughts
by
some famous and not so famous
anglers...
Many of these quotes are universally known from many sources but I have
recently (2010) found Nick Lyons helpful text "The Quotable Fisherman" which has
collated quotes, and I recommend its purchase. In time when I find
something unique to his collation I will reference him and his book is to
be seen as cover image at the bottom of this page.
I'm a l(l)uring to all to it seems except hungry fish!
Wayne Real
2005
Napp och Nytt Covers
We commissioned a number
celebrated artists, including Harald Wiberg, Gunnar Brusewitz and Per Ahlin from
Sweden and also artists from USA and other countries
to create unusual catalog covers. We
gave them free reign as long as their subject had something to do with fishing.
Each time, we printed up 500 numbered copies of the print, signed by the artist.
These were sold at cost to the first customers who placed their orders.
Lennart Borgstrom
ABU and Garcia
What Happened?
p 207/208
ex owner ABU
Williamsburg VA
2006
Re ABU Rods:
ABU entered the market with rod blanks manufactured by the
Swedish steel works, Sandviken Stal....Later, for a short while, ABU sold
Horgard split cane rods in Sweden but very soon fibreglass rods came to replace
both steel and split cane. The Conolon blanks sourced from Narmo in USA which
ironically be later entirely owned by ABU were made into finished rods in
Sweden.
Lennart Borgstrom
ABU and Garcia
What Happened?
p82/83
ex owner ABU
Williamsburg VA 2006
Re ABU 20/30 IGFA
......The reel worked perfectly, but it was much too heavy, so we cancelled the
project. Today, one can probably produce the same reel out of much lighter
modern materials that are just as strong as stainless steel.
Lennart Borgstrom
ABU and Garcia
What Happened?
p178
ex owner ABU
Williamsburg VA 2006
As Garcia was not interested in the Ambassadeur reel, we had
given the exclusive sales rights to a man named Julian Wessler in Searsdale New
York. Meanwhile Garcia begun purchasing a few different lures from us, including
the ABU Reflex.
Lennart Borgstrom
ABU and Garcia
What Happened?
p97
ex owner ABU
Williamsburg VA 2006
"When Ake (Murvall) showed me his sketches for the Ambassadeur,
my first impresssion was that it appeared large and clumsy, compared with, our
Record 2100. Naturally, it was not surprising that all the new features on this
reel would take a bit more room, but it just goes to show how hard it is to
predict the public reaction to a new product."
Lennart Borgstrom
ABU and Garcia
What Happened?
p59
ex owner ABU
Williamsburg VA 2006
"We just hired a new designer, Karl Nurmse. His first project
was to create a new spinning reel, made entirely in Sweden, with as many
features as possible. This became the ABU 444, with drag adjustment at the back
which was to become the trademark for all spinning reels that ABU later
produced."
Lennart Borgstrom
ABU and Garcia
What Happened?
p65
ex owner ABU
Williamsburg VA 2006
"On Memories...
On the banks of a river, the trash collector and
the executive are equals; it is the one with the bigger catch who is superior"
Lennart Borgstrom
ABU and Garcia
What Happened?
p239
ex owner ABU
Williamsburg VA 2006
"On Memories...
The most amazing thing about working in the sport fishing industry
is that fishing transends all economic and social classes."
to be continued..
Lennart Borgstrom
ABU and Garcia
What Happened?
p239
ex owner ABU
Williamsburg VA 2006
"On the ABU Museum in Svangsta.............
Henning Karlsson, the curator, has dedicated a tremendous
amount of work in his effort to preserve a small piece of Swedish business
history for future generations"
Lennart Borgstrom
ex owner ABU
Williamsburg VA 2006
The ABU design did much to set the standard of sheer quality and
durability, making them the hurdle any new brand must clear before it is
accepted.
Vic McCristal (McSea, Practical fishing with Lures 1979 p31)
No angler merely watches nature in a passive way. he enters into
its very existence.
John Bailey Reflections on the Water's Edge
Is fishing a good tonic? It can certainly be a good tonic for a
harrassed person of the present day, perhaps the best medicine for stress , that
special disease of the present generation
[50 years ago]
Dr H J Casserman Tight Lines catalog p.16 1959
Fishing is not like billiards, in which it is possible to attain
a perfect disgusting perfection.
Arthur Ransome "On Giving Advice to Beginners" Rod and Line
1929
If fishing interferes with your business, give up the business...
trout do not rise in the cemetry!
Sparse Grey Hackle ...Fishless Days 1954
Only those become weary of angling who bring nothing to it but
he idea of catching fish
Rafael Sabatini 1875-1950
You
will search far to find a fisherman to admit a taste for fishing, like a taste
for liquor, must be governed lest it come to possess the possessor...
Sparse Grey Hackle, 'Fishless
Days' 1954
Fishing and ABU has
brought friends together across the globe.
My
recent 2 weeks fishing with Swedish mate
Uffe Edefuhr was very special and will
always be a great memory.
Maybe one day in Sweden, I will catch a dozen species!
Wayne Real
The charm of fishing is that it is the
pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for
hope.
John Buchan
The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad.
A.K. Best
Even
if you've been fishing for hours and haven't caught anything
except
a few cuts , stings and some sunburn,
You're still a lot better off than the bait.
Author Unknown
The best
fisherman I know try not to make the same mistakes over and over again; instead
they strive to make new and interesting mistakes and to remember what they
learned from them.
John
Gierach
"Fly Fishing
the High Country"
The wilderness and adventure that are in fishing still recommend it
to me
Henry David Thoreau (Walden1854)
You know when they have a fishing show on TV? They catch the fish and then let
it go. They don't want to eat the fish. They just want to make it late for
something.
Ernest Hemingway
In every species of fish I've angled for, it is the ones that have got away that
thrill me the most, the ones that keep fresh in my memory.
So I say it is
good to lose fish. If we didn't, much of the thrill of angling would be
gone.
Ray Bergman
Catch and Release fishing is a lot like
golf. You don't have to
always eat the ball to have a good time.
Unknown
No man is born an artist
or
an Angler
Izaak Walton 1653
Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He
caught every other fish.
Anon
We ask a simple question
And that is all we wish:
Are fishermen all liars?
Or do only liars fish?
William Sherwood Fox, Silken Lines and Silver Hooks, 1954
He told us about Christ's disciples being
fisherman, and we were left to assume...that all great fishermen on the Sea of
Galilee were fly fisherman and that John, the favourite, was a dry-fly
fisherman.
Norman Maclean-
"A
River Runs Through It"
All Americans believe that they
are born fishermen. For a man to
admit a distaste for fishing would be
like denouncing mother-love
or hating moonlight.
John Steinbeck
Fishers
and fish are very much alike.
They both get into trouble when they
open their mouths.
Author Unknown
Angling
may be said to be so
like the mathematics that it
can never be fully learnt.
Izaak Walton.
Of all the liars among mankind, the fisherman is the most
trustworthy.
William Sherwood Fox, Silken Lines and Silver Hooks, 1954
Govern a family as you would catch a small fish - very gently.
Chinese Proverb
They
say Catch and Release fishing is a lot like golf.
You
don't have to eat the ball to have a good time
Author unknown
I love fishing. You put that line in the water and you don't know what's
on the other end. Your imagination is under there.
Robert Altman
There are two types of fisherman - those who fish only for
fish and those
who fish for sport.
Author Unknown
I think I fish, in part,
because it's an anti-social,
bohemian business that,
when gone about properly,
puts you forever
outside the mainstream culture
without actually landing
you in an institution.
John Gierach
I PRAY THAT GOD WILL SEND ME
A FISH SO BIG THAT EVEN I
WHEN TALKING OF IT AFTERWARDS
WILL HAVE NO NEED TO LIE!
Irish Blessing
Scholars have long known that fishing eventually turns men into philosophers.
Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to buy decent tackle on a philosopher's
salary.
Patrick F. McManus
I am
not against golf, since I cannot but suspect it keeps armies of the
unworthy from discovering trout...
Paul O'Neil
Even eminent chartered accountants are known, in their capacity as fishermen,
blissfully to ignore differences between seven and ten inches, half a pound and
two pounds, three fish and a dozen fish.
William Sherwood Fox, Silken Lines and Silver Hooks, 1954
All fishermen are liars; it's an occupational disease with them like
housemaid's knee or editor's ulcers.
Beatrice Cook, Till Fish Do Us Part,
1949
There will be days when the fishing is better than one's most optimistic
forecast, others when it is far worse. Either is a gain over just staying
home.
Roderick Haig-Brown, Fisherman's Spring, 1951
Give a man a fish and he has food for a day; teach him how to fish and you can
get rid of him for the entire weekend.
Zenna Schaffer
The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but
attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.
John Buchan
The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing.
Babylonian Proverb
You do not cease to fish because you get old,
You get old because you
cease to fish!
Writer unknown
It has always been my private conviction that any man who pits his intelligence
against a fish and loses has it coming.
John Steinbeck
May the holes in your net be no larger than the fish in it.
Irish Blessing
Nothing makes a fish bigger than almost being caught.
Author
unknown
Bragging may not bring happiness, but no man having caught a large
fish goes home through an alley.
Author Unknown
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it
is not fish they are after
Henry David Thoreau
