"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've got three things I wanted most: a Churchill gun, a Hardy rod and a beautiful wife"
Macdonald Hastings, journalist and author, UK

"How do I define history?" asks Rudge, in The History Boys. "It's just one ******* thing after another" - Alan Bennett

A writer is someone for whom "writing is harder than it is for ordinary people."

"I thank you, and here is a hearty draught to you, and to all the brothers of the angle wheresoever they be," Izaak Walton

"Surely luck was with me today, Sir,
I left my heart in the stream,
My body is weary tonight, Sir,
But I have lived the stuff of my dreams."
E.R.Hewitt.

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

Q. After spending considerable time and money learning to tie flies, you collect a magnificent assortment of natural blue dun and other high-grade hackle, furs for dubbing, fine-wire hooks and other materials. Shortly after you install a fully-equipped fly-tying table in your den, your six-year-old son develops a violent allergy to feathers. What action do you take?

A. Frankly, you may not get full credit on this if you suggest putting the boy up for adoption. There are several good boarding schools that accept boys of this age, or you could send him to live with relatives. Adoption is a lengthy, bothersome process.

Ed Zern

"How can one find adequate words to describe the sweet feel of a rod that makes casting an esthetic delight, yet which adds little to one's ability to catch fish?" from "The Philosophical Fisherman" by Harold Blaisdell

I want fish from fishing, but I want a great big deal more than that, and getting it is not always dependent upon catching fish.

Roderick Haig-Brown

Build me a cabin in Utah,
Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout,
Have a bunch of kids who call me "Pa,"
That must be what it's all about,
That must be what it's all about.
Bob Dylan

There are three kinds of people in this world.
Those who can count and those who can't.

"It is you and clean, flowing water. It is you, inquisitive, in a wild world that is older than man, seeking greater understanding and finding not only an endless interest but a tranquility that comes, most of the time, to all nature´s wild creatures..." Lee Wulff

Bertolt Brecht - "Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are."

"May you live every day of your life."

"We play mind games with fish . . . . and lose . . (?)"

"All the tackle in the world won't give a fisherman a good time if he's not built for it."
Peterson

No one told me about lack of communication . . . .

"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

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


"Those that are dead are not dead, they're still living in my head" - Chris Martin

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

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

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