Quotes & Sayings About Anglers

Anglers have a way of romanticizing their battles with fish. — Ernest Hemingway,

Most anglers, especially tyros, false cast too often. Three false casts should be sufficient for any throw and two is better. One is perfect. — Joe Brooks

Young anglers love new rivers the way they love the rest of their lives. Time does not seem to be of the essence and somewhere in the system is what they are looking for. — Thomas McGuane

See how he throws his baited lines about,/And plays his men as anglers play their trout. — Oliver Wendell Holmes

A friend of ours, who is an admirer of Isaac Walton, was struck, just as we were, with the likeness of the old angler's face to a fish. — Leigh Hunt

These are the technicalities. The jetes and pirouettes.. but the music of the dance lies in the subtle signals between the steps: the fish's delivery of them, the fisherman's read of and response to them, which, if she's good, must be near telepathic. That's what takes a death-grip on your concentration. That's why your mind empties of all trivia, which, when playing a fish, includes just about everything else you could possible think of. That is what anglers live for. — Jessica Maxwell

No life is so happy and so pleasant as the life of the well-govern'd angler. — Izaak Walton

Though no participator in the joy of more vehement sport, I have a pleasure that I cannot reconcile to my abstract notions of the tenderness due to dumb creatures in the tranquil cruelty of angling. I can only palliate the wanton destructiveness of my amusement by trying to assure myself that my pleasure does not spring from the success of the treachery I practise toward a poor little fish, but rather from that innocent revelry in the luxuriance of summer life which only anglers enjoy to the utmost. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

I am aware, of course, that many men do hate the sight of their wife and children. Doctors even have a name for these people: 'anglers'. — Jeremy Clarkson

Widows are more skillful anglers for husbands than spinsters, and many marry several times. This is a social injustice to spinsters. "One man one woman," is surely as fair a cry as "One man one vote." As there is scarcely one man for each woman, what right has one woman to two, three, or four men in succession? She may reply, "By the right of conquest." But, then, is she not reducing others to unhappy courses or to become old maids? ... Society, for the interests of all, should discourage the remarriage of widows. — Tennessee Celeste Claflin

My wife wonders why all women do not seek anglers for husbands. She has come in contact with many in her life with me and she claims that they all have a sweetness in their nature which others lack. — Ray Bergman

These poor rich men, we anglers pity them perfectly. — Izaak Walton

For at least the last 275 years the honesty of fishermen has been somewhat questionable. It should be noted that Izaak Walton whose book published in 1653 spoke not of anglers and , but anglers OR very honest men . — Arthur Ransome

The English language is like a broad river on whose bank a few patient anglers are sitting, while, higher up, the stream is being polluted by a string of refuse-barges tipping out their muck. — Cyril Connolly

We really cannot see what equanimity there is in jerking a lacerated carp out of the water by the jaws, merely because it has no the power of making a noise; for we presume that the most philosophic of anglers would hardly delight in catching a shrieking fish. — Leigh Hunt

Advice to anglers: don't take advice from people with missing fingers. — Henry Beard

There are a couple of carp fishing books I've been reading. I'm very interested in that line of books, because I think they write very well, carp anglers, about the general environment. — Tom Felton

Fly tackle has improved considerably since 1676, when Charles Cotton advised anglers to 'fish fine and far off,' but no one has ever improved on that statement. — John Gierach

Had I a river I would gladly let all honest anglers that use the fly cast line in it, but, but where there is no protection, then nets, poison, dynamite, slaughter of fingerlings, and unholy baits devastate the fish, so that 'free fishing' spells no fishing at all. — Andrew Lang

The trout in yonder wimpling burn - That glides, a silver dart, - And, safe beneath the shady thorn, - Defies the anglers art ... — Robert Burns

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. — Ed Engle

Indeed if fish had fish-lore and Wise-fish, it is probable that the business of anglers would be very little hindered. — J.R.R. Tolkien

As much as anything, the anglers will clue you in to the midge hatch. You will see them hunched over in concentration like herons. The better ones will be in as close as they can get to the dimpling trout. What you'll notice is the rythmic flicking of casts toward a porpoising trout and the lack of any other motions. The only exception will be the gentle tug that sets a very small hook attached to the leader by a very delicate tippet. The playing of the trout, if it is a good one, will be a cat-and-mouse sort of ecstacy. — Ed Engle

What I had mastered was fly-fishing Rule # 1: Remove all hooks from soft tissue under water, where near-freezing temperatures anesthetize exposed nerve endings and you can't hear your fellow anglers' hysterical laughter. — Jessica Maxwell

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. — Thaddeus Norris

The long hour and a half walk-in to the secret pool , only to find four anglers filling it. Secret pools? The only secret about these pools is the name of the one person on the planet who does not know their location! — Tony Bishop

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. — Leigh Hunt

This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest men. — Izaak Walton

I am an old fashioned angler seeking to fish in a peaceful and relaxing way in traditional surroundings. Other anglers are too noisy, too busy, and catch fish that might break my landing net. — Fennel Hudson

Anglers ... exaggerate grossly and make gentle and inoffensive creatures sound like wounded buffalo and man-eating tigers. — Roderick Haig-Brown