Just some quotes I like.

[shazerblaze]

These are quotes from "Wit & Wisdom of Fishing". These specific quotes were selections I saw in another forum for Midwest steelheaders, and I thought I would share them with you. I think these are great:

"I came from a race of fishers; trout streams gurgled about the roots of my family tree."
-John Burroughs


"You must lose a fly to catch a trout."
-George Herbert


"A trout caught with a fly is a jewel of price, but a trout poached with a worm is like throwing cogged dice."
-J.P. Wheeldon


"I never lost a little fish-yes, I am free to say it always was the biggest fish I caught that got away."
-Eugene Field


"About ninety in a hundred fancy themselves anglers. About one in a hundred is an angler. About ten in a hundred throw the hatchet better than the fly."
-Colonel Peter Hawker


Noted fly fisherman Lefty Kreh was once asked by a nonfisherman what the sense was of catching a fish just to let it go. He responded: "Do you burn your golf b@lls after a game?"


Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will sit on the bank and drink beer all day.


"A beautiful stream to one man is just so much water in which he may possibly catch so many trout."
-Arthur Brisbane


"Once an angler, always a fisherman. If we cannot have the best, we will take the least, and fish for minnows if nothing better is to be had."
-Theodore Gordon


"Old friends can wade a trout stream together or walk a woodland cover and not encounter just the fish or the game of that day, but also the memories of other days and other places. They've taken the bitter with the better and found it all rewarding."
-Lee Wulff


"Most anglers spend their lives in making rules for trout, and trout spend theirs in breaking them."
-George Aston


"And I think, as I angle for fish, in the hope that my hook will attach'em, it's delightfully easy to fish-but--but harder than blazes to catch'em."
-Wallace Irwin


"Fly making gives us a new sense almost. We are constantly on the lookout, and view everything with an added interest. Possibly we may turn it into a bug of some kind."
-Theodore Gordon

Tight lines.

[mcgx2]

Good Post, thanks

mcg

[RAW]

"The only waves I have made in life have been in the currents of trout and salmon waters, and that is where I propose to continue making them." Jack Hemmingway

"Work is for those who don't know how to fly-fish." Unknown

OK one more:

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

[PowerBaitHeppy]

"There's just nothing like the feel of a trout dancing through the river making the pole pulse like a heart in your hands. It does to the hands what the sight of your sweetie does to your body, what dreams of eternity do to your heart, what milk chocolate does to your mouth . . . And yet we killed two trout. It's strange to kill your dance partners, but that's what we did. We did it because the world is strange

"A human child at birth undergoes a ritual almost identical to that inflicted upon trophy trout at death, to wit 1) the fish is whacked on the head, thus putting it out of its misery; the infant is whacked on the behind, thus initiating it into its misery."

--Gus Orviston, The River Why

[gware]

Give a man a fish and he will have dinner,
Teach a man to fish and he will be late for dinner.

Give a man a fish and he will have dinner
Teach a man to fish and he learn to call in sick.

gware

[walksinwater]

This one by G.E.M. Skues is my favorite.


"Then do you mean that I have got to go on catching these damned two-and-a-half pounders at this corner for ever and ever?"

The keeper nodded.

"Hell!" said Mr. Castwell.

"Yes," said his keeper.

[Wyoming 2]

"As young Mozart cared for nothing but keyboards, strings and woodwinds, so I care for nothing but lakes, rivers, streams and their denizens." --Gus Orviston, The River Why

"The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish/ Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,/ And greedily devour the treacherous bait..." --William Shakespeare, As You Like It

"A fisherman stands on a projecting rock with a long rod, throws in ground bait to attract little fishes, drops in hook and line...and at last gets a bite and whips him out gasping..." --Homer, The Odyssey

"If God is everything the Bible and the Compleat Angler crack Him up to be, it's Him that's making me want to fish anyhow, and Him who will turn me into a fish or worm or fly or angel or star or saint or sun or frog or taco whenever He decides and what could I do about it? Nothing. Just keep fishing. That's all." --Gus Orviston, The River Why

[Larry S.]

"Whether you are 4'6'' or 6'4", whether you can cast 50 feet or 100, the biggest fish in the pool always holds one step deeper than the top of your waders".

"In fly fishing, as in the rest of life, there's no such thing as a free lunch. There's always a price to be paid. Case in point: As your expertise increases, your eyesight diminishes. You observe that the trout seem to prefer smaller patterns every year, too". (Ouzel, if you haven't noticed this already, it's going to sneak up and bite you on the arse soon!)

"Those who rhapsodize about fly fishing's inherent grace have never witnessed the sorry spectacle of a float tuber waddling into the water. Like the making of laws and sausages, it's not something you really want to see".

"There are times when the promise of fast. furious action--and, especially the promise of big fish-- eclipse aesthetic concerns. Then, you'll happily stand elbow-to-elbow with your fellow anglers. And because they're fly fishermen, chances are they're pretty good guys". (for you Provo River guys)

"There is a tendency among fly fishermen, as a class of human beings, to take themselves(and the sport) too seriously. This inclination must be fought at all costs; it is, after all, supposed to be fun". (for all of us)

All quotes from "The Little Book of Fly Fishing" by Tom Davis

[shazerblaze]

Good stuff. It was wonderful to read quotes by famous people and your own thoughts. Thanks for your thoughts.

[cardiac]

"Every man should believe in something- I believe I'll go fishing"
Thoreau
Liked it so much I added it as my e-mail signature, and some posts.

Alan


"Every man should believe in something- I believe I'll go fishing"
Thoreau
(p.s.- see what I mean)

[mcgx2]

They are all great, thanks

mcg

[RAW]

"Some men go to church and think about fly fishing...Other men go fly fishing and think about God."

-not sure who said it.


"Fishermen probably are liars, but if we make the good stuff better than it really was, we also make the bad stuff worse, and we believe that in the long run that balances out to be something very much like the truth."

-John Gierach

"Pleasure is spread throughout the earth
In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find."

-William Woodsworth

[RHeppy]

"The Carp is the queen of rivers--a stately, a good, and a very subtle fish."
Izaak Walton
The Compleat Angler (1653)

Fly Fishing with a Mule:
"...a man to a pond (where it seems a pike had devoured all the fish) to water his mule, had a pike bite his mule by the lips, to which the pike hung so fast, that the mule drew him out of the water, and by that accident the owner got the pike..."
Izaak Walton
The Compleat Angler (1653)

"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 results, of having something tangible in your basket when the day's work is done"
Bliss Perry
Fishing with a Worm (1904)

"And another thing that makes it easier to ice fish is that one need not worry about his backcast"
Arthur R. Macdougall Jr.
"Fishing Through the Ice"
The Trout Fishermans Bedside Book (1963)

[Jason]

In The Earth is Enough, Harry Middleton states,
"There is a serious side to this code business, too, you know. No worms. No salmon eggs. Not even the pretty pink ones. And no tender, sweet niblets of corn. You don't bait what you love. You tempt it, lure it, get under its skin."

In so many words, Middleton analyzes the art of fly fishing as a sensual way of luring a fish into taking an artificial fly.

I used this quote to open the first paragraph in my article "Fly Fishing Fundamentals for the Beginner." I stumbled across it a few years back. It really summed up my feeling of fly fishing.

http://www.utahonthefly.com/articles/frameset.htm

[Wyoming 2]

A Kiluhiturmiut Eskimo song:

"Glorious was life when standing at my fishing hole
on the ice. But did standing at my fishing hole ever
bring me joy? NO!
Ever was I so anxious for my little fishhook
if it should not get a bite, Ayi, yai ya..."

Sir Izaak Walton:

"O the gallant fisher's life,
It is the best of any!
'Tis full of pleasure, void of strife,
And 'tis beloved by many."

Taj Mahal:

"I'm a goin' fishin', Mama's goin' fishin'
An' de baby's goin' fishin' too.
Bet yo' life
Yo' swee wife's
Gonna catch mo' fish dan you."

(Why I am still a single fisherman!)

[1fly]

One of my favorite:

"When I cross over the last current of all, I confidently expect to see a certain breed of sinners, oblivious to their burns, casting Rat-face McDougalls upon the waters of the River Styx."

William Humphrey

Maybe there is hope for us Sabbath Day anglers. Just hope the Styx isn't as crowded as the Provo.

[PowerBaitHeppy]

"Gus! I'm a philosopher, not an evangelist!
It's the 'wish I knew' that's crucial. To say 'God does it' and leave it at that is to abandon the searcn before it's begun. To really want the truth, to long for it desperately, is to reject every formulation and theory and dogma and opinion right up to the time you see and touch and unite with the Being or Thing itself! Nobody ever discovers truth by barfing up sunday-school anwers to questions..."
--Titus, The River Why

[Wyoming 2]

Curtis, to understand you would have to read The River Why!

[Conehead]

If you caught fish all the time, they'd call it "catching."