what are your favourite fishing quotes?

[Solithar]

This just made my gloomy-grey morning all shiny:

"Upon the merits and delights of angling I need scarcely descant.
Every angler knows that his feet are never put to the ground with
such alacrity and right good-will, as when
tramping to the river — rod in hand — full of
hope and expectation, on a fine April morning.
Serenely happy, he then proclaims a universal
amnesty to every created being (except an
opposition angler), and feeling internally at
peace with himself, the world, and all mankind,
every object that meets his view seems
to wear the same sunny smile that gilds his
own happy reflections. Would that all our
dealings and pursuits in the ordinary avocations
of daily life were productive of such
blessed results!"

"But woe to you who dwell in pent-up
cities! A chaos of bricks and smoke, and
- fumes of every unsavoury odour, constitute
your dreary world. To you, ever surrounded
by the cares of life, and perpetually bored
to desperation by that demon, whose imps are
£. s. D., in an everlasting and ceaseless contest;
the glorious works of the Creator's hands — green
hills and sunny fields — are scarcely known;
to you, a mouthful of fresh air, and a glimpse of
rural scenes, must be a treat indeed! Rise
then, gird on your mantle, and follow me, at
least in imagination, and I will initiate you
into the mysteries of the "gentle art", giving
you such a taste of rural entertainment as shall
render the country for ever dear to your recollection;
and the squalid haunts of vice, pestilence,
and immorality, hideous and detestable."

(in the preface by A. S. MOFFAT to "THE SECRETS OF ANGLING", Edinburgh, 1865)

[Bob Brookes]

Darling, I'm just having one last cast.

BOB BROOKES 1943----

[Phil Arnott]

Here are some quotes about shore fishing.

“Ten pounders, twenty pounders, forty pounders, what difference did it make? The roar of the Old Ocean, the cries of the gulls, the clean smell of seaweed and the surging rush of a striper on light tackle; those were the things that counted...Those are the things that linger when the season’s over and the fish have departed. Those are the things one sees in the dying embers of a fire as a blizzard whines by the frosty window of your room. Those are the memories one carries to the grave.”

Van Campen Heilner
From “Salt Water Angling” (1937)


“A man may spend a day on the beach and come home at evening with an empty basket, and yet count the day not wasted. Many things there are to be caught besides fish: the sunlight, the salty breeze that sweeps the dunes, healthful exercise. And also, there is a certain satisfaction of the soul which comes to most of us when old ocean rolls before our eyes. There is a vastness about it, and yet restfulness. Power and strength are expressed in every breaker, and yet the sonorous beat of them lulls us to sleep. The omnipotence of it assures us of our own insignificance and unimportance in the scheme of nature, but at the same time it satisfies us to the futility of worry and complaint over small irritations of life. Personally, I believe that after a day or week beside the blue water I come home a better man, and if the results are not permanent, it is no fault of my tutor. At least I am sure that I return happier, and more contented, and younger in spirit and body.”

Frank Stick

from “The Call of the Surf”(1920) Van Campen Heilner and Frank Stick

[Bobby Marlene]

"Hell, if I'd jumped on all the dames I'm supposed to have jumped on,
I'd never had no time to go fishing. "
-- Clark Gable

[Reedling]

It was this big...

[Keston]

[Troydog]

Brilliant stuff guys - laugh out loud at your quotes. I still like, after another blank in good conditions : " the fish just don't read the b***** books !!

[Shed_Monkey]

The gods do not deduct from a man's allotted span, the hours spent fishing.

A Babylonian proverb.

Foam resembling a thousand drifts of snow
Soundless, the peach and pear trees form their battalions of spring
With one jug of wine
And a fishing line
On this Earth how many are as happy as I?

Liyu (936 - 978 AD) "Fisherman's Song"

[Bobby Marlene]

"North American & National Champion Taxidermist
Specializing in "Catch and Release" fish mounts"

Signature of a member of Classic fly rod forum

[Scott]

"No fisherman can be a good man."

BYRON