Best 544 quotes in «fishing quotes» category

And angling too, that solitary vice, What Izaak Walton sings or says: The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his gullet Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.

And connected I had been. When the fish changed directions, I felt it. when it slowed or sped up, I felt that too. It's such a raw thing, this shared existence with a piece of bucking biomass.

And for winter fly-fishing it is as useful as an almanac out of date.

And one thing I can be proud of is we have a 'Come and Try Fishing' day every year. And there's 20 venues throughout the state, and see, these thousands of kids who've never been fishing come along.

Anglers boast of the innocence of their pastime; yet it puts fellow-creatures to the torture. They pique themselves on their meditative faculties; and yet their only excuse is a want of thought.

Anglers have a way of romanticizing their battles with fish.

Angling is an amusement peculiarly adapted to the mild and cultivated scenery of England

Anglers may be divided into almost as many genera and species as the fish they catch, and engage in the sport from as many impulses.

Angling is extremely time consuming. That's sort of the whole point.

Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics that it can never be fully learned.

An undisturbed river is as perfect as we will ever know, every refractive slide of cold water a glimpse of eternity.

A river is water is its loveliest form; rivers have life and sound and movement and infinity of variation, rivers are veins of the earth through which the lifeblood returns to the heart

As far as I can ascertain the reasons for missing a rising fish come from faulty reactions. When we miss a fish we are either too fast or too slow

Around the steel no tortur'd worm shall twine, No blood of living insect stain my line; Let me, less cruel, cast the feather'd hook, With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook, Silent along the mazy margin stray, And with the fur-wrought fly delude the prey.

An excellent angler, and now with God.

As for me, tough duty though it may be, I continue to do my part for the commercial recreation industry. Fishing, boating, tennis, golf, running, hunting, and all of this. Horseshoes. It's tough duty. Somebody has to do it, and I'm going to keep on.

Aside from its importance to many branches of science, a knowledge of the oceans has a practical value for mankind. The intelligent development of our fishing industries, the laying of oceanic cables, the proper construction of harbor-works, oceanic commerce and navigation, as well as long-range weather forecasting, are all dependent on an understanding of the ocean.

A simple fishing boat in the midst of the rippling waters is enough to awaken in the mind of the beholder a sense of vastness of the sea and at the same time of peace and contentment - the Zen sense oof the alone.

A sly old fish, too cunning for the hook.

As the old fisherman remarked after explaining the various ways to attach a frog to a hook, it's all the same to the frog.

A standard saying among fly fishermen is that trout spend anywhere from 80 to 90 percent of their time feeding below the water's surface on the immature forms of aquatic insects. Some anglers are even more precise, but whatever the exact percentage , it's safe to say that to fully appreciate any tailwater fishery you will have to learn the fine art of nymphing.

A thousand hills, but no birds in flight, Ten thousand paths, with no person's tracks. A lonely boat, a straw-hatted old man, Fishing alone in the cold river snow.

A trout is a moment of beauty known only to those who seek it.

A trout fisherman is something that defieth understanding.

A Rod: An attractively painted length of fiberglass that keeps an angler from ever getting too close to a fish.

Big fish eat small fish with as much right as they have power.

...But some of the ideas are ridiculous. Such as matching the hatch. Of course there are times when you have a fly as alike as possible to the flies on the water. But casting and accuracy and how you present your fly and how fast it gets there and how fast it swims are all more important than matching the hatch.

But very unfortunately the merchant marine died away till even the majority of fishing done about the Cape is in the hands of the Portuguese who emigrated to the Cape some fifty years ago.

Best fishing in troubled waters.

Catch-and-release fishing is an ecological necessity, not my preference. The practice smacks of bad faith, an inauthentic act.

Catching fish is not a mental game between fish and angler. A 'smart' trout is only smarter than other trout, not smarter than a fisherman. An angler must take the puzzle of the day's conditions, and matching those conditions and his knowledge of the fish come up with a good catch. He competes with a concept, not with a fish's brain.

Catch and release fishing may be cruelty masquerading as political correctness

Coffee, whiskey, and fishing poles. That’s really all you need in life.

Come warm weather, I'm going to take a kid fishing; I hope you do to. But nothing would make me happier than to look across the cove or down the stream and see a young one help an old one remember what it is like to be young in Springtime.

Conducting" is when you draw "designs" in the nowhere-with a stick, or with your hands-which are interpreted as "instructional messages" by guys wearing bow ties who wish they were fishing.

Desire for an idea is like bait. When you're fishing, you have to have patience. You bait your hook, and then you wait. The desire is the bait that pulls those fish in-those ideas.

Datin'is a lot like fishin'. Sometimes catch and release is the best method.

Don't pray for the rain to stop; pray for good luck fishing when the river floods.

Consciousness of a fact is not knowing it: if it were, the fish would know more of the sea than the geographers and the naturalists.

Despite all the variables and advise, like love and marriage it seemed to me that learning to cast ought to be a lot easier than it was.

Don't tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish.

Do one thing every day that scares you... Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own... Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

Don't wait until you retire to go fishing. Don't even wait until your annual vacation. Go at every opportunity. Things that appear more urgent at the moment may, in the long run, turn out to be far less so.

Doubt not but angling will prove to be so pleasant that it will prove to be, like virtue, a reward to itself.

Every afternoon, I was in the pasture with cattle or fishing and shooting my BB gun. That kind of freedom allows imagination to develop.

Early on I decided that fishing would be my way of looking at the world. First it taught me to look at rivers. Lately it has been teaching me how to look at people, myself included.

... everyone's free to embark on either a great clipper or a little fishing boat. An artist is an explorer who oughtn't to shrink from anything: it doesn't matter whether he goes to the left or the right -- his goal sanctifies all.

Every city has a town outside with a lake. I pull out my fishing pole and fish. I've been doing that for a long time.

Every time I go to sleep, I know I may never wake up. How could anyone expect to? You drop your tiny, helpless mind into a bottomless well, crossing your fingers and hoping when you pull it out on its flimsy fishing wire it hasn't been gnawed to bones by nameless beasts below.

Every time I caught a fish, I wondered how something so small could have such clear, pure strength. It kept reminding me of another sensation, from another realm. The fish on the line, I eventually realized, felt like the baby, kicking inside you. Or the shocking, life-hungry pull of the baby on the breast. Perhaps fishing is like quickening for men, a long and patient wait for a few electric moments when they feel connected to another life.