your favourite flyfishing quotes

or however that dang word is written! : ) Use this forum to discuss those things that are related to, directly, or indirectly, fly fishing, i.e., tackle, catalogs, single malt scotch, cigar preferences, pipes, camera gear, etc. This is sort of an off topic area but one related to bamboo and fly fishing.

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gloucesteroldspot
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#61

Post by gloucesteroldspot »

"I'll be glad when I've had enough of this"

Fred J Taylor on fishing in bad weather

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RPL
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#62

Post by RPL »

"Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll sit in a boat and drink beer all day."

Armchair Angler
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#63

Post by Armchair Angler »

"Safe in his ten, a convalescent little boy with gold in his hair and cookie on his face smiled in his sleep as the shadowed banks of the Great River of Life swept unheeded past his bed, and a stout man with sparse grey hackles crept sheepishly down the the stairs"

Alfred Miller (Sparse Grey Hackle)
from the story Down the Great River

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baunvivant
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#64

Post by baunvivant »

But when the wole affair is used skillfully, the fishing can be as extraordinary as the casting is vulgar.

-- Habit of RIvers by Ted Leeson

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bobk
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Location: 40o 10’37.71” N ~ 74o 27’20.14” W

your favourite flyfishing quotes

#65

Post by bobk »

"A couple of reels in a creel beat the snot out of potporri in a basket on the back of the commode !!!!!!!!!!!!!!"..... Marty 4/10/09 on the Classic Fly Rod Forum

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tiptop
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#66

Post by tiptop »

Geirach -- "Maybe your stature as a fly fisherman isn't determined by how big a trout you can catch but how small a trout you can catch without being disappointed, and, of course, without losing faith that there's a bigger one in there . . ."

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wiscoy
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#67

Post by wiscoy »

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
"It is better to tie one good fly in an hour than a dozen that would only be taken by a trout with a sense of humor"
Uncle Bill

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Gnome
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#68

Post by Gnome »

"A cast that reaches a fish is never too short"

Pat McManus

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PaducahMichael
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Location: Paducah, KY

your favourite flyfishing quotes

#69

Post by PaducahMichael »

"I stared at that unexpected bouquet of orange and green and white as if I had been hypnotized. I was suddenly a
kid again, and if I had been struck dead at that very moment I probably would have said "brook trout" the way
Orson Welles said "Rosebud" in Citizen Kane."
E. Donnall Thomas, Jr.
Bamboo Rod Restoration Service : http://www.caneclinic.com

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FWdB
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#70

Post by FWdB »

"They were curious about what he might be doing standing in a river waving a stick."

joaniebo
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#71

Post by joaniebo »

Taken from (http://clarke.cmich.edu/draper-angling/page3.html ) regarding Judge John Voelker (Robert Traver):

"Finally, one looks back at the wonderful writings of former Michigan Supreme Court Justice John Voelker. His writings, under the pseudonym "Robert Traver," properly capture the true mood and spirit of fishing that one should aspire to while immersed in the Reed Draper Collection of Angling Books. His writings in Trout Madness (1960), Trout Magic (1974), and Anatomy of a Fisherman (1964) all convey a sense of humor about the business of angling. He notes that fishing is older than even love and chess; he muses that fly-fishing is so much fun that it should be done in bed; he states that all fishermen are probably a little mad; he keeps big "gram paw" trout to eat; he assails the arrogance of trout swamis; and he assiduously avoids any notion of being pretentious. He writes: Trout Fisherman, like Gaul, may be divided into three parts; those who fish mainly to get fish; those who fish mainly to get away; and those who fish because they love the act of fishing and love to be where trout are found. This fisherman counts himself among the last breed, where I suspect most true trout fisherman belong. For trout, unlike men, will not-indeed cannot-live except where beauty swells, so that any man who would catch a trout finds himself inevitably surround by beauty; he can't help himself.

In his Testament of a Fisherman, he adds:

I fish because I love to;
because I love the environs where trout are found ...
because in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion;
because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed or impressed with power, but respond only to quietude and humility and endless patience;
because I suspect that men are going along this way for the last time, and I for one don't want to waste the trip;
because mercifully there are no telephones on trout waters;
because only in the woods can I find solitude without loneliness;
because bourbon out of an old tin cup always tastes better out there;
because maybe one day I will catch a mermaid;
and, finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant-and not nearly so much fun.

Cheers and Safe Fishing

Bob
"Fishing is such great fun, I have often felt, that it really ought to be done in bed." - John Voelker

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BlackHillsBill
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Location: Sioux Falls (a little east of the Hills), SD

your favourite flyfishing quotes

#72

Post by BlackHillsBill »

Berry Point wrote: Last December Black Hills Bill pointed us to this final paragraph from Cormack McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Road.

"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."

Not only is it hauntingly beautiful, and you must read it in context to truly understand its relevance to the book, but the past tense reminds us that absent a world-wide life ending cataclysm the long term viability of trout may indeed depend on us. Let us not forget.
I was sifting my favorites when I noticed you had done the job for me. It's touching you
recalled this passage from Cormack McCarthy's novel, among other things about the last
journey of a son with his father. For nearly two years, I've been on a road of sorts, too,
with my seriously ill son--near the end now.

In the strange juxtaposition good writing sometimes arranges for a person, the hauntingly
beautiful moments from both journeys will always remain linked. They will be summoned up,
inevitably, in every sighting of a brook trout. A special grace.

Thanks.

BHB

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bearbutt
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#73

Post by bearbutt »

Earlier in this thread I quoted Gingrich on McClane, but it was an occasional quotation--it was Labor Day after all--so it was the favorite-for-the-moment sort of quotation. I was reading Gingrich last night, and chanced upon another beauty that has always been a favorite--it doesn't seem to have anything at all to do with fishing, and yet--as Joel Anderson can assure us--it has everything to do with fishing. It's from 'The Well-Tempered Angler,' chapter 13:

"It was mid-August of '55, and I was between wives."

bb

oneculm
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#74

Post by oneculm »

From the owner of a great shop on the Battenkill that has been closed for a long time.
"Don't spend so much time frigging with the rigging".

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Ed Pirie
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#75

Post by Ed Pirie »

John Gierach. The View From Rat Lake:

"We humans try desparately to think of things in static terms. Certain values are enduring, certain countries are friendly, certain lakes have big fish. It lets us relax a little, or it would if it were true. The fact is, a few isolated things do endure, but most of what we deal with is more accurately thought of as a process rather than a monument."

For some reason or other, I have liked this bit of wisdom, or at least it seemed like wisdom to me.

Ed Pirie
West Topsham, Vermont

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Al Nixon
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#76

Post by Al Nixon »

Well, here is a fishing quote that is not eloquent, but memorable. A fellow driving by a lake slows down and hollers to a guy fishing from the shore with his wife nearby; a bait rod is perched in a forked stick, beer in his hand. "Catch anything?" he asks.
The response he got was, "I ain't caught nothing, but my wife...she got two nipples".
Last edited by Al Nixon on 04/18/09 18:52, edited 1 time in total.

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luzerne1
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#77

Post by luzerne1 »

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

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Al Nixon
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#78

Post by Al Nixon »

My last post took the air out of this thread, I fear. Here is another that is not so crude; it's in the form of a story:

Joe Brooks was reportedly a very gracious and considerate gentleman who didn't look down his nose at anyone, so please do not get the wrong idea when you read this. It is written here as I heard it.

Joe Brooks was in Dan Bailey's shop in Livingston, MT late one winter afternoon. He saw an older fellow who was familiar, though they were not acquainted, and he walked over to him and introduced himself, hoping to spark a conversation: "Hi, I'm Joe Brooks. I just got back from the Florida Keys, fishing for bonefish".
The other gentleman, stooched over from years of working in the locomotive shops looked up at Joe and replied, " I'm Joe Schmo. I just got back from the Ninth Street Bridge..fishing for whitefish".

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Shoeless Joe
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Location: Kolorado

your favourite flyfishing quotes

#79

Post by Shoeless Joe »

Though I'd like to think I'm somewhat more diplomatic, being from Chicago, I've always enjoyed Norman Maclean's unabashed sarcasm:

"We regarded it (Big Blackfoot) as a family river, as part of us, and I surrender it now only with great reluctance to dude ranches, the unselected inhabitants of Great Falls, and the Moorish invaders from California."

"We were brought up in the mountains and always looked at people from the plains as deformed."

"Most fisherman would rather argue than catch fish."

"Your (Nick Lyons) prose should go well with rivers, even with the Madison, which at least used to be one hell of a river. The last time I fished it, though, it was covered with b*stards from Texas in rubber rafts. I believe, now, however, it can't be fished by raft. The b*stards from Texas in rubber rafts have all moved over to the Big Blackfoot - they are in danger of capsizing from collision."

Humored by the aforementioned, I am moved by the following Maclean passages:

"Fishing is a world unto itself and inside this world are worlds all their own."

"Often the way things that seem disparate and different are unified is by art and beauty. When you see it and are moved by it, you are about as close as you can get to putting the whole shebang together. Somewhere it says all things merge into one and a river runs through it."

"I have company about me when I'm alone in the woods. I feel they're beautiful. They're a kind of religion to me. My dearest friends are also beautiful. My wife was an infinitely beautiful thing. I certainly feel that there are men and women whom I have known and still know who are really above what one could think humanly possible. They and the mountains are for me what 'passeth human understanding' "


Sapere aude!

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orange caddis
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your favourite flyfishing quotes

#80

Post by orange caddis »

Here is a favorite of mine:

"It takes so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment or the courage to pay the price...One has to abandon altogether the search for security and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to enbrace the world like a lover. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying." Morris L. West, The Shoes of a Fisherman
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