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Fishing quotes and thoughts

some famous and not so famous anglers...

I'm a l(l)uring to all to it seems except hungry fish!

Self 2008

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

Good things come to those who bait.

Author Unknown

The best way to a fisherman's heart is through his fly.

Author Unknown

An angler is a man who spends rainy days sitting around on the muddy banks of rivers doing nothing because his wife won't let him do it at home.

Author Unknown

"Carpe Diem" does not mean "Fish of the Day."

Author Unknown

Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish.

Author Unknown

A bad day of fishing is better than a good day of work.

Author Unknown

Men and fish are alike. They both get into trouble when they open their mouths.

Author Unknown

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

Author Unknown

Even if you've been fishing for three hours and haven't gotten anything except poison ivy and sunburn, you're still better off than the worm.

Author Unknown

Bass fishermen watch Monday night football, drink beer, drive pickup trucks and prefer noisy women with big breasts. Trout fishermen watch MacNeil-Lehrer, drink white wine, drive foreign cars with passenger-side air bags and hardly think about women at all. This last characteristic may have something to do with the fact that trout fishermen spend most of the time immersed up to the thighs in ice-cold water.

Author Unknown

Gone fishin', be back at dark-thirty!

Author Unknown

Fishing is the sport of drowning worms.

Author Unknown

Even a fish wouldn't get into trouble if he kept his mouth shut.

Author Unknown

Zen and the art of ice fishing is an oxymoron.

Author unknown

There is certainly something in angling that tends to produce a serenity of the mind.

Washington Irving

Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl.

Ernest Hemingway

The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad.

A.K. Best

If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles.

Doug Larson

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

There he stands, draped in more equipment than a telephone lineman, trying to outwit an organism with a brain no bigger than a breadcrumb, and getting licked in the process.

Paul O'Neil, 1965

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

There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.

Steven Wright

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

Fishing is a... discipline in the equality of men - for all men are equal before fish.

Herbert Hoover

Calling fishing a hobby is like calling brain surgery a job.

Paul Schullery

...of all the liars among mankind, the fisherman is the most trustworthy.

William Sherwood Fox, Silken Lines and Silver Hooks, 1954

...trout that doesn't think two jumps and several runs ahead of the average fisherman is mighty apt to get fried. ~Beatrice Cook, Till Fish Do Us Part, 1949

Give a man a fish, and he can eat for a day. But teach a man how to fish, and he'll be dead of mercury poisoning inside of three years.

Charles Haas

Three-fourths of the Earth's surface is water, and one-fourth is land. It is quite clear that the good Lord intended us to spend triple the amount of time fishing as taking care of the lawn.

Chuck Clark

There is no greater fan of fly fishing than the worm.

Patrick F. McManus, Never Sniff a Gift Fish, 1979

People who fish for food, and sport be damned, are called pot-fishermen. The more expert ones are called crack pot-fishermen. All other fishermen are called crackpot fishermen. This is confusing.

Ed Zern, 1947

Enjoy thy stream, O harmless fish;
And when an angler for his dish,
Through gluttony's vile sin,
Attempts, the wretch, to pull thee out,
God give thee strength, O gentle trout,
To pull the rascal in!

John Wolcot

Our tradition is that of the first man who sneaked away to the creek when the tribe did not really need fish.

Roderick Haig-Brown, about modern fishing, A River Never Sleeps, 1946

Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers.

Herbert Hoover

You must lose a fly to catch a trout.

George Herbert

If you've got short, stubby fingers and wear reading glasses, any relaxation you would normally derive from fly fishing is completely eliminated when you try to tie on a fly.

Jack Ohman, Fear of Fly Fishing, 1988

My biggest worry is that my wife (when I'm dead) will sell my fishing gear for what I said I paid for it.

Koos Brandt

Catching fish is as incidental to fishing as making babies is to sex

William Humphrey, CDAS

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

Doug Larson: "If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles."

Unknown: "Fishing is the sport of drowning worms."

A. K. Best: "The Fishing was good, it was the catching that was bad."

Unknown: "Even a fish wouldn't get into trouble if he kept his mouth shut."

Izaac Walton: "Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery elements are made for wise men to contemplate and for fools to pass by without consideration."

Patrick F. McManus: "Smoked carp tastes just as good as smoked salmon when you ain't go to smoked salmon."

John Voelker: "Fishing is such great fun, I have often felt, that it really ought to be done in bed."

Tony Blake: "Some go to church and think about fishing, others go fishing and think about God."

Tom Browaw: "If fishing is like religion, then fly fishing is high church."

Unknown: "There are two types of fisherman - those who fish for sport and those who fish for fish."

Babylonian Proverb: "The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing."

Paul O'Neil: "I am not against golf, since I cannot suspect it keeps armies of the unworthy from discovering trout."

Norman Maclean - A River Runs Through It: "Eventually all things merge into one and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs."

Unknown: "The difference between fly fishers and worm dunkers is the quality of their excuses."

Washington Irving: "There is certainly something in angling that tends to produce a serenity of the mind."

John Steinbeck: "It has always been my private conviction that any man who pits his intelligence against a fish and loses has it coming."

Patrick F. McManus: "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."

David Stempko: "The worst day of fishing is still better than the best day at work."

Arnold Gingrich: "Fly-fishing is the most fun you can have standing up."

William Sherwood Fox: "Of all the liars among mankind, the fisherman is the most trustworthy."

Charles Haas: "Give a man a fish, and he can eat for a day. But teach a man how to fish, and he'll be dead of mercury poisoning inside of three years."

Unknown: "Nothing makes a fish bigger than almost being caught."

Chuck Clark: "Three-fourths of the Earth's surface is water, and one-fourth is land. It is quite clear that the good Lord intended us to spend triple the amount of time fishing as taking care of the lawn."

John Gierach: "If we carry purism to it's logical conclusion, to do it right {fishing} you'd have to live naked in a cave, hit your trout on the head with rocks, and eat them raw. But, so as not to violate another essential element of the fly-fishing tradition, the rocks would have to be quarried in England and cost $300 each."

Unknown: "Work is for those who do not fly fish."

Robert Traver: Deep down I've always known fly fishing is to the rest of fishing what high seduction is to rape."

Paul O'Neil: "There he stands, draped in more equipment than a telephone lineman, trying to outwit an organism with a brain no bigger than a breadcrumb, and getting licked in the process."

Unknown: "All fishermen are liars except you and me and to tell you the truth, I'm not so sure about you!"

Robert Traver: "The best time to go fishing is when you can get away".

Patrick F. McManus: "The two best times to fish is when it's rainin' and when it ain't."

Jimmy D. Moore: "My wife said I have so many fly rods and reels that I cannot possibly use them all. My reply was that I had rods and reels to fish, rods and reels to tinker with and then my fine crafted rods and reels to "fondle and admire, while dreaming of trout fishing during the cold winter months. You can imagine what kind of look she gave me."

Joseph D. Farris: "When a man picks up a fly rod for the first time, he may not know, he has been born again."

Ernest Hemingway: "Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl."

Paul Schullery: "Calling fly-fishing a hobby is like calling brain surgery a job."

Izaak Walton: "Blessings upon all that hate contention, and love quietness, and virtue, and Angling."

Norman Maclean-A River Runs Through It: "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 favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman."

Chinese Proverb: "Govern a family as you would catch a small fish - very gently."

Unknown: "'Carpe Diem' does not mean 'fish of the day'."

Koos Brandt: "My biggest worry is that my wife (when I'm dead) will sell my fishing gear for what I said I paid for it."

New Yorker Magazine: "Bass fishermen watch Monday night football, drink beer, drive pickup trucks and prefer noisy women with big breasts.
Trout fishermen watch MacNeil-Lehrer, drink white wine, drive foreign cars with passenger-side air bags and hardly think about women at all.
This last characteristic may have something to do with the fact that trout fishermen spend most of the time immersed up to the thighs in ice-cold water."

Henry Kanemoto: "Fly fishing is like sex, everyone thinks there is more than there is, and that everyone is getting more than their share."

Unknown: "Catch and Release fishing is a lot like golf. You don't have to eat the ball to have a good time."

Ed Zern: "Fishermen are born honest, but they get over it."

William Sherwood Fox: "We ask a simple question and that is all we wish; Are fishermen all liars?; or, do only liars fish?"

Roderick Haig-Brown: "Anglers...exaggerate grossly and make gentle and inoffensive creatures sound like wounded buffalo and man-eating tigers."

Unknown: "Everyone ought to believe in something; I believe I'll go fishing."

Dick Blalock: "These brook trout will strike any fly you present, provided you don't get close enough to present it."

Robert Traver: " The true fisherman approaches the first day of fishing season with all the sense of wonder and awe of a child approaching Christmas."

Charles Kuralt: "Often I have been exhausted on trout streams, uncomfortable, wet, cold, briar scarred, sunburned, mosquito bitten, but never, with a fly rod in my hand have I been less than in a place that was less than beautiful."

Unknown: "The awkward fisherman does nothing but disturb the water."

Jimmy D. Moore: "My wife says I'm hard of hearing. All husbands who have been around the block a time or two, know it's called "selective hearing". I hear what I want to hear. I can hear a trout rise. I can hear a spinner hit the water. I can hear the drumming of a grouse at half a mile, but I danged well can't hear her when she wants me to make the bed, or paint the house, etc. etc. I secretly had my hearing tested just to be sure. The doc says it is great, a 7 % loss in my left ear and a 10% loss in my right. Very typical of anyone who does a lot of hunting with a shotgun. But I'm not about to tell my wife that."

Unknown: "Who ever said "A bad day of fishing is always better than a good day at work." Never had their boat sink."

Jack MacKinnon: "Fishermen don't yield to the weather."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If people don't occasionally walk away from you shaking their heads, you're doing something wrong.

John Gierach

Be patient and calm - for no one can catch fish in anger.

Herbert Hoover

It is not how abundant nor how considerable our catch be, but rather to the sport, and manner in which our quarry, the noble trout is angled.

J.B. Martin

The only reason I ever played golf in the first place was so that I could afford to hunt and fish.

Sam Snead

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 McManus

The fish and I were both stunned and disbelieving to find ourselves connected by a line.

William Humphrey in "The Armchair Angler"

I've gone fishing thousands of times in my life, and I have never once felt unlucky or poorly paid for those hours on the water.

William Tapply "A Fly-Fishing Life"

I look into... my fly box, and think about all the elements I should consider in choosing the perfect fly: water temperature, what stage of development the bugs are in, what the fish are eating right now. Then I remember what a guide told me: 'Ninety percent of what a trout eats is brown and fuzzy and about five-eighths of an inch long.

Allison Moir

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

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"

If I'm not going to catch anything, then I 'd rather not catch anything on flies

Bob Lawless.

I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious…..a good fishing trip?

Vince Lombardi

...buying a fly rod in the average city store, that is, joining it up and safely waggling it a bit, is much like seeing a woman's arm protruding from a car window: all one can readily be sure of is that the window is open.

Anatomy of a Fisherman by Robert Traver

Why does a salmon rise? Why does a small boy cross the street just to kick a tin can?

Lee Wulff, The Atlantic Salmon

In these sad and ominous days of mad fortune chasing, every patriotic, thoughtful citizen, whether he fishes or not, should lament that we have not among our countrymen more fishermen.

Grover Cleveland

The Essentials of a Good Fly-Hook: The temper of an angel and penetration of a prophet; fine enough to be invisible and strong enough to kill a bull in a ten-acre field.

G.S. Marryat

Just as in cooking there's no such thing as a little garlic, in fishing there's no such thing as a little drag.

H.G. Tapply The Sportsman's Notebook

Smoked carp tastes just as good as smoked salmon when you ain't got no smoked salmon.

Patrick F. McManus

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

Fly tackle has improved considerably since 1676, when Charles Cotton advised anglers to 'fish fine and far off,' but no one has ever improved on that statement.

John Gierach

Creeps and idiots cannot conceal themselves for long on a fishing trip.

John Gierach

They say you forget your troubles on a trout stream, but that's not quite it. What happens is that you begin to see where your troubles fit into the grand scheme of things, and suddenly they're just not such a big deal anymore.

John Gierach

If fishing is interfering with your business, give up your business.

Sparse Grey Hackle

Most anglers, especially tyros, false cast too often. Three false casts should be sufficient for any throw and two is better. One is perfect.

Joe Brooks

Game fish are too valuable to only be caught once.

Lee Wulff

I used to like fishing because I thought it had some larger significance. Now I like fishing because it's the one thing I can think of that probably doesn't.

John Gierach

Something to think about: If you fish the wrong fly long and hard enough, it will sooner or later become the right fly.

John Gierach

No life is so happy and so pleasant as the life of the well-govern'd angler.

Izaak Walton

Whether I caught fish or not, just the thrill of rolling out that line and watching my fly turn over has been good enough for me. That and the hundreds of treasured memories I have of this wonderful sport.

Curt Gowdy

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

"Often I have been exhausted on trout streams, uncomfortable, wet, cold, briar scarred, sunburned, mosquito bitten, but never, with a fly rod in my hand have I been less than in a place that was less than beautiful." Charles Kuralt

"There is only one theory about angling in which I have perfect confidence, and this is that the two words, least appropriate to any statement, about it, are the words "always" and "never." Lord Edward Grey

"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 favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman." Norman Maclean - A River Runs Through It

"The trout do not rise in the cemetery, so you better do your fishing while you are still able." - Sparse Grey Hackle

"If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles." - Doug Larson

"The angler forgets most of the fish he catches, but he does not forget the streams and lakes in which they are caught." - Charles K. Fox

"The great charm of fly-fishing is that we are always learning." - Theodore Gordon

"I have fished through fishless days that I remember happily without regret." - Roderick Haig-Brown

There he stands, draped in more equipment than a telephone lineman, trying to outwit an organism with a brain no bigger than a breadcrumb, and getting licked in the process.

Paul O'Neil

"I'm going out to fish," Simon Peter told them, and they said, "We'll go with you." So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

John 21:3

Most fishermen swiftly learn that it's a pretty good rule never to show a favorite spot to any fisherman you wouldn't trust with your wife.

John Voelker

My biggest worry is that my wife (when I'm dead) will sell my fishing gear for what I said I paid for it.

Koos Brandt

More than half the intense enjoyment of fly-fishing is derived from the beautiful surroundings, the satisfaction felt from being in the open air, the new lease of life secured thereby, and the many, many pleasant recollections of all one has seen, heard and done.

Charles F. Orvis

One fish. Two fish. Red fish. Blue fish. Black fish. Blue fish. Old fish. New fish. This one has a little star. This one has a little car. Say! What a lot of fish there are.

Dr. Seuss

You do not cease to fish because you get old, You get old because you cease to fish!

Writer unknown

All the romance of trout fishing exists in the mind of the angler and is in no way shared by the fish.

Harold F. Blaisdell

Fishing is not an escape from life, but often a deeper immersion into it...

Harry Middleton

"Overwork: a dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing."

Tom Brokaw

"If fishing is a religion, fly fishing is high church."

Brett Butler

"My ex-husband is the kind of guy who would watch a fishing show on television and pay attention to it."