A Belief I Subscribe to...by Mr. Voelker.

[billems]

"A trout stream is a poor place for gambling and much of the reflective charm of fishing is lost by making a surly competition out of the undertaking. I will have no part of a fishing party made up of those fishing prima donnas whose very manhood seems to depend on being top rod."

Robert Traver/ John Voelker

Amen.

[chsparkman]

I like it!

[jvh]

I must agree, I guess that's why I typically fish alone. But without competition how do you determine who buys the beer? (just kidding)

[Cimarron]

If I fish alone, I'm always top rod. Except when I beat myself up for doing stupid things or missing fish and all those voices in my head get going. It can get crowded out there being by myself.

[Caneghost]

I have always told a great friend: You have to take what the river gives you.

Sometimes that may be the trout of our dreams, others it may be broken tippets and missed strikes, or a day without the sight of anything with fins. It is all part of the journey.

Solitude is a pleasant and increasingly rare component of fly fishing.

[Eperous]

I have always told a great friend: You have to take what the river gives you.

Sometimes that may be the trout of our dreams, others it may be broken tippets and missed strikes, or a day without the sight of anything with fins. It is all part of the journey.

Solitude is a pleasant and increasingly rare component of fly fishing.

So true... growing so, especially in 2020 it seems to me...

Ed

[Loogie]

I have always told a great friend: You have to take what the river gives you.

Sometimes that may be the trout of our dreams, others it may be broken tippets and missed strikes, or a day without the sight of anything with fins. It is all part of the journey.

Solitude is a pleasant and increasingly rare component of fly fishing.

I'm going to borrow this with your permission, a perfect saying!

[headwaters]

The trout streams I frequent give me the pleasure of being alone without being lonely!

[bassman]

It's getting hard to find a stream, lake or river that there isn't some kind of contest going on during the weekend. In more populous areas there' the midweek "jackpots" on different lakes. There are three trout tourneys advertised on my Facebook sites right now along with promotions for future crappie and carp tourneys, walleye and catfish tourneys, name the fish and there's a tournament coming up and down here most of them start next month and go all summer.

Yes, I fished a lot of bass tournaments some years back and I always felt bad that our tourney trucks and trailers would pretty much wipe out spots on our lakes and local lakes even with a shuttle back to our ramp. This meant some families with their kids out for a ride had to either park illegally and risk a ticket or go find another lake with a spot to park. MN passed a law saying a tournament could not use more than half of the spots at a ramp but that was just about the time I was moving and don't know how that worked out.

If you're going out on a local lake to throw a popper for a few bluegills for dinner and there's a bass tourney going on look out. No respect for you when there is money involved. They'll run by wide open between you and shore if it means getting to a fish they've got staked out before the next guy. People owning houses and docks on these lake have had to put drop nets around their boats to keep from getting there upholstery ripped or lures hung up and broken off on their dock legs waiting for their kids to come out and play. One lake I fished a lot had signs out in two places where their inflatable bouncie rafts had been ripped and punctured during the weekend tournament.

[billems]

If I fish alone, I'm always top rod. Except when I beat myself up for doing stupid things or missing fish and all those voices in my head get going. It can get crowded out there being by myself.

Kind of like what a saxophone player said about Stan Getz: "I know Stan Getz; he's a nice buncha guys."

[DrLogik]

I've always subscribed to that philosophy as well. If it's not the biggest fish it's the most fish caught it seems. Me? I'm just out fishing to have fun. I've never been a competitive fisherman.

This quote by Ray Bergman in his book, "Trout", is one I keep close to my fishing soul:

The catching of fish seems insignificant in these memories of the play of the elements. I don't remember much about it, but as I see it now, I believe that the fishing was simply an excuse to get out in the open, to breathe air that came to me directly over open spaces, to face nature when she bared her soul. - Ray Bergman

[GerardH]

I've subscribed to many of the Judge's observations, I credit (blame?) him for pulling me into fly fishing when I first read Anatomy of a Fisherman in the early '70s. He was, and continues to be, my fly fishing muse.