Fly Fishing Quotes

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

  Patrick F. McManus

  Lakes, Sea, Fishing

  Patrick F. McManus (1984). “Never Sniff A Gift Fish”, p.157, Macmillan

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• Fly-fishing is the most fun you can have standing up.

  Arnold Gingrich

  Fun, Fishing, Standing

  68 Copy quote

• In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.

  Norman Maclean

  Brother, Father, Sea

  Norman Maclean, Barry Moser (1989). “A River Runs Through It”, p.1, University of Chicago Press

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• In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.

  Norman Maclean

  Fishing, Lines, Our Family

  "A River Runs Through It" (1976)

  33 Copy quote

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

  A. Best

  Lakes, Sea, Fishing

  47 Copy quote

• The finest gift you can give to any fisherman is to put a good fish back, and who knows if the fish that you caught isn't someone else's gift to you?

  Lee Wulff

  Kindness, Fishing, Giving

  Lee Wulff (1989). “The compleat Lee Wulff: a treasury of Lee Wulff's greatest angling adventures”, Dutton Adult

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• Fly-fishing is a magic way to recapture the rapture of solitude without the pangs of loneliness.

  John D. Voelker

  Loneliness, Rivers, Lakes

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  Fishing, Trout, Forget You

  130 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, Fishing, Mainstream Culture

  John Gierach (2001). “Death, Taxes, and Leaky Waders: A John Gierach Fly-Fishing Treasury”, p.303, Simon and Schuster

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

  Charles W. Waterman

  Jobs, Simple, Lakes

  49 Copy quote

• 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

  Reading, Lakes, Glasses

  46 Copy quote

• One great thing about fly fishing is that after a while nothing exists of the world but thoughts about fly fishing

  Norman Maclean

  Fishing, World, Great Things

  Norman Maclean (2009). “A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition”, p.18, University of Chicago Press

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• 

  Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Uplifting, Sports

  96 Copy quote

• 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

  Hate, Inspiration, Men

  Herbert Hoover (1946). “Addresses Upon the Road: World War II, 1941-1945”

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• The two best times to fish is when it's raining and when it ain't.

  Patrick F. McManus

  Rain, Fishing, Two

  27 Copy quote

• If fishing is a religion, fly fishing is the high church.

  Tom Brokaw

  Fishing, Church, Ifs

  8 Copy quote

• Fly-fishing is solitary, contemplative, misanthropic, scientific in some hands, poetic in others, and laced with conflicting aesthetic considerations. It's not even clear if catching fish is actually the point.

  John Gierach

  Hands, Fishing, Poetic

  John Gierach (2010). “Dances With Trout”, p.210, Simon and Schuster

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• Work: a dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Lakes, Sea, Fishing

  Ambrose Bierce (2011). “Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs”, p.743, Library of America

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• Good things come to those who wait.

  Jess C Scott

  Inspirational, Funny, Patience

  Jess C. Scott (2010). “Porcelain”, p.147, jessINK

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• Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes.

  Don Marquis

  Liars, Lying, Lakes

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Sea, Fishing, Rivers

  "Robert Altman: What I've Learned" by Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. January 29, 2007.

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• ...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.

  John D. Voelker

  Rivers, Lakes, Average

  12 Copy quote

• What a tourist terms a plague of insects, the fly fisher calls a great hatch.

  Patrick F. McManus

  Fishing, Tourists, Insects

  9 Copy quote

• Fly fishermen are born honest, but they get over it.

  Ed Zern

  Fishing, Honest, Fisherman

  9 Copy quote

• Time flies so fast after youth is past that we cannot accomplish one half the many things we have in mind or indeed one half our duties. The only safe and sensible plan is to make other things give way to the essentials, and the first of these is fly fishing.

  Theodore Gordon

  Past, Sea, Fishing

  Theodore Gordon (1947). “The Complete Fly Fisherman”

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