What's your favorite flyfishing quote?

[brhoff]

"If people don't occasionally walk away from you shaking their heads, you're doing something wrong." John Gierach ...

one of my favorites and does anyone recall the exact Gierach quote about the fine line between fishing and standing in a river waving a stick?

[JohnScott]

The fish are always right.

[dudley]

When baseball great Ted Williams was asked what he thought about Carl Yastrzemski, his replacement in the Red Sox line-up he replied.

"I've only got one thing to say about Yaz, Yaz fishes with worms"

[Kerry Stratton]

"Besides egotism there is in every fisherman a humor, a certain loquaciousness, a friendly levity, an inclination to argument, an inexplicable sense of the pleasure in idling hours along a river, and a peculiar tendency toward exaggeration which he can recognize in his companion, but is rarely capable of seeing in himself."
Zane Grey

"I have been, all my life, what is known as a conservationist. It seems clear beyond possibility of argument that any given generation of men can have only a lease, not ownership, of the earth; and one essential term of the lease is that the earth be handed down on to the next generation with unimpaired potentialities. This is the conservationist's concern."
Roderick Haig-Brown

[Bamboozle]

Anything by Ed Zern; here's one of my favorites:

"A recent survey showed that roughly two-thirds of all fishermen never eat fish. This should surprise nobody. Fish is brain food. People who eat fish have large, well-developed brains. People with large, well-developed brains don't fish. It's that simple." - Ed Zern

[Lotech]

Rocks don't swim.
I believe that's one of Lefty's.

[Steve Molcsan]

At the top of our sign is one of my favorites from "Testament of a Fisherman"


Be safe!

[kglissmeyer]

I've got a few:

From 'A River Runs Through It':

One reason Paul caught more fish than anyone else was that he had his flies in the water more than anyone else. "Brother," he would say, "there are no flying fish in Montana. Out here, you can't catch fish with your flies in the air."

Something within fishermen tries to make fishing into a world perfect and apart - I don't know what it is or where, because sometimes it is in my arms and sometimes in my throat and sometimes nowhere in particular except somewhere deep. Many of us probably would be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters.


As much has been said of 'the movie', I, for one, enjoyed it immensely along with the book as written by Norman Maclean. Another favorite that I use often with my sons after having experienced a bad day, week, etc., is (paraphrased), "Let's go fishing and wipe this day off the map", along with "...he's (we're) going to make a killing".

Kelly.

[Joel D. Popham]

Fish where they are, not where they ain't.

[jimsnarocks]

Ladyfisher's column this week, "Overheard" has a lot of quotes. I think the most useful are: "The most important thing in fly fishing is observation", "The second most important thing in fly fishing is observation", and "Finally, The most important thing in fly fishing is observation".