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Fishing Quotes

"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains." - Henry David Thorea - Walden

"Blessings upon all that hate contention, and love quietnesse, and vertue, and Angling." - Izaak Walton

"The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad."  - A.K. Best

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

"To paraphrase a deceased patriot, I regret that I have only one life to give to my fly-fishing." - Robert Traver

"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 will find angling to be like the virtue of humanity, which has a calmness of spirit and a world of blessing attending upon it." - Izaak Walton

"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 - The Philosophical Fisherman

"Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics that it can never be fully learnt" - Izaak Walton

"The man who coined the phrase "Money can't buy happiness", never bought himself a good fly rod!" - Reg Baird, from his video Labrador Trout

"My Biggest worry is that when I'm dead and gone, my wife will sell my fishing gear for what I said I paid for it." - Koos Brandt

"Today she met me at the door, said I would have to choose, if I picked that fishing pole today, she'd be packing all her things and she'd be gone by noon....well I'm gonna miss her when I get home tonight. Right now I'm on this lake shore, and I'm sitting in the sun! I'm sure it'll hit me when I walk thru that door tonight. Yeah, I'm gonna miss her. Oh lookie there, I gotta bite!" - Brad Paisley

"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." - Norman Maclean - A River Runs Through It

"Fly fishermen are born honest, but they get over it." - Ed Zern

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

"Wherever the trout are, it's beautiful." - Thomas Masaryck

"I am haunted by water." - Norman Maclean - A River Runs Through It

"Fish come and go, but it is the memory of afternoons on the stream that endure." - E. Donnall Thomas

"If fishing is like religion, then flyfishing is high church." - Tom Brokaw

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

"The angling fever is a very real disease and can only be cured by the application of cold water and fresh, untainted air." - Theodore Gordon

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

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

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

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

"It is not difficult to learn how to cast; but it is difficult to learn not to snap the flies off at every throw." - Charles Dudley Warner

"Calling Fly Fishing a hobby is like calling Brain Surgery a job." - Paul Schullery

"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

"When the beginner can cast his fly into his hat, eight times out of ten, at forty feet, he is a fly fisher; and so far as casting is concerned, a good one." - James A. Henshall

"Lots of people committed crimes during the year who would not have done so if they had been fishing. The increase of crime is among those deprived of the regenerations that impregnate the mind and character of the fisherman." - Herbert Hoover

"The only thing bad about winning the pennant is that you have to manage the All-Star Game the next year. I'd rather go fishing for three years." - Whitey Herzog

"The fish is not so much your quarry as your partner." - Arnold Gingrich

"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

"It is only the inexperienced and thoughtless who find pleasure in killing fish for the mere sake of killing them. No sportsman does this." - W.C. Prime

"There are only two occasions when Americans respect privacy, especially in Presidents. Those are prayer and fishing." - Herbert Hoover

"I now believe that fishing is far more important than the fish." - Arnold Gingrich

"Why do people go fishing? Some say they fish to get fish. This is obviously false." - John Randolph

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

"Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes." - Don Marquis

"Men and fish are alike. They both get into trouble when they open their mouths." - Jimmy D Moore

"The best fisherman in the world can't catch them if they  aren't there." - Anthony Acerrano

"Most of the world is covered by water. A fisherman's job is simple: Pick out the best parts." - Charles Waterman

"Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fly fish and he'll move to Montana." - Anonymous

"Heaven seems a little closer in a house beside the water." - Anonymous

"What a tourist terms a plague of insects, the fly fisher calls a great hatch." - Patrick F. McManus

"As the angler looks back, he thinks less of individual captures and days than of scenes in which he fished." - Lord Grey of Fallondon

"A good fisherman can secure many regenerative hours in winter, polishing up the rods and reels." - Herbert Hoover

“There is no greater fan of fly fishing than the worm.” - Patrick McManus - Never Sniff a Gift Fish

"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

"Many of the most highly publicized events of my presidency are not nearly as memorable or significant in my life as fishing with my daddy." - Jimmy Carter

"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

"All of us search for that perfect trout stream. Those who find it treasure it the rest of their lives. Those who don't keep on searching." - "Trout Streams I've Known" by Jimmy D. Moore

"Even the thousandth trip to the same old familiar fished-out stream begins with renewed hope, with unfailing faith. - Zane Grey

"I don't want to sit at the head table anymore. I want to go fishing." - George Bush

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

"There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot." - Steven Wright

"One of the turning points of my life was when I got my first bait-casting outfit." - Jimmy Carter

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

"One of the greatest charms of angling is that of all the sports, it affords the best opportunity to enjoy the wonders and beauty of nature." - J. J . Manley

"The one great ingredient in successful fly-fishing is patience. The man whose fly is always on the water has the best chance. There is always a chance of a fish or two, no matter how hopeless it looks. You never know what may happen in fly-fishing." - Francis Francis

"At the outset, the fact should be recognized that the community of fisherman constitutes a separate class or subrace among the inhabitants of the earch." Grover Cleveland

"To me heaven would be a big bull ring with me holding two barrera seats and a trout stream outside that no one else was allowed to fish in and two lovely houses in the town; one where I would have my wife and children and be monogamous and love them truly and well and the other where I would have my nine beautiful mistresses on nine different floors." - Ernest Hemingway

"Unless one can enjoy himself fishing with the fly, even when his efforts are unrewarded, he loses much real pleasure. 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

"There are always greater fish than you have caught, always the lure of greater task and achievement, always the inspiration to seek, to endure, to find. - Zane Gray

"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

"For the supreme test of a fisherman is not how many fish he has caught, not even how he has caught them, but what he has caught when he has caught no fish." - John H. Bradley

"Fishing is a constant reminder of the democracy of life, of humility, and of human frailty. The forces of nature discriminate for no man." - Herbert Hoover

"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

"Perhaps fishing is, for me, only an excuse to be near rivers." - Roderick Haig-Brown

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

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

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

"And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men."  Mark 1:17

"Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after." - Henry David Thoreau

"Game fish are to valuable to be caught only once" - Lee Wulff

"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

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

"Next to prayer, fishing is the most personal relationship of man." - Herbert Hoover

"To go fishing is the chance to wash one's soul with pure air, with the rush of the brook, or with the shimmer of sun on blue water. It brings meekness and inspiration from the decency of nature, charity toward tackle-makers, patience toward fish, a mockery of profits and egos, a quieting of hate, a rejoicing that you do not have to decide a darned thing until next week. And it is discipline in the equality of men - for all men are equal before fish." - Herbert Hoover

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


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