Quotes & Sayings About Fly Fishing

Fly fishing or any other sport fishing, is an end in itself and not a game or competition among fishermen ... — Ed Zern

Yes, I actually have a portable fly-tying kit in my vest. I spent hours putting it all together, with a special emphasis on midge materials as well as enough fur and feathers to whip out a half dozen of virtually every conceivable dry pattern nature can throw at me. I have used it once, in 1993. — Jack Ohman

It is well known that no person who regards his reputation will ever kill a trout with anything but a fly. It requires some training on the part of the trout to take to this method. — Charles Dudley Warner

One great thing about fly fishing is that after a while nothing exists of the world but thoughts about fly fishing — Norman Maclean

Fly fishing is not about catching the fish. It is about enjoying the water, the breeze, the fish swimming all around. If you catch one, good. If you don't ... that is even better. That mean you come out and get to try all over again. — Clare Vanderpool

If you've got short, stubby fingers and wear reading glasses, any relaxation you would normally derive from fly fishing is completely eliminated when you try to tie on a fly. — Jack Ohman

The indications which tell your dry fly angler when to strike are clear and unmistakable, but those which bid a wet fly man raise his rod-point and draw in the steel are frequently so subtle, so evanescent and impalpable to the senses, that, when the bending rod assures him that he has divined aright, he feels an ecstacy as though he had performed a miracle each time. — G. E. M. Skues

To paraphrase a deceased patriot, I regret that I have only one life to give to my fly-fishing. — John D. Voelker

It's difficult for people to come to the understanding that only a small minority of the people ever really get the word about life, about living abundantly and successfully. Success in the important departments of life seldom comes naturally, no more naturally than success at anything-a musical instrument, sports, fly-fishing, tennis, golf, business, marriage, parenthood, landscape gardening. But somehow people wait passively for success to come to them, living as other people are living in the unspoken, tacit assumption that other people know how to live successfully. — Earl Nightingale

He belonged to the new breed of male epicureans who viewed cooking as a competitive sport, and pursued it with the same avidity that others had for fly-fishing or golf, with the attendant fetishization of the associated gadgetry and equipment. He — Jay McInerney

But when they began handing out doctorates for comparative folk dancing and advanced fly-fishing, I became too stink in' proud to use the title. I won't touch watered whiskey and I take no pride in watered-down degrees. — Robert A. Heinlein

As we've seen the rise of cultural, environmental and educational tourism in adventure travel, we've also seen the rise of female participation. Part of that is due to changes in women's attitudes about their own abilities. As more women participate in such things as fly-fishing, whitewater kayaking and bicycling, we're also seeing concurrent growth in those areas in adventure travel. — Christopher Doyle

Other CEOs were shown fly-fishing in Scottish rivers or piloting their own Learjets into Helsinki. Mr. Hosokawa was photographed at home in the leather chair he sat in when he listened, a Nansei EX-12 stereo system behind him. — Ann Patchett

Well, I love fishing. I wouldn't kill a fly myself but I've no hesitation in killing a fish. A lot of men are like that. No bother. Out you come. Thump. And that's not the only reason. — Norman MacCaig

The fact is, there's a great deal of hair-splitting fussiness when it comes to fly-fishing, most of it as silly as a top hat. — Justin Cronin

Think about Tucker. Think about a good memory, she whispers in my mind. Remember a moment when you loved him. And just like that, I do.
"What did the fish say when it hit a concrete wall?" he asked me. We're sitting on the bank of a stream and he's tying a fly onto my fishing rod, wearing a cowboy hat and red lumberjack-style flannel shirt over a gray tee. So adorable.
"What?" I say, he grins. Unbelievable of how gorgeous he is. And that he's mine. He loves me and I love him.
"Dam!" he says. — Cynthia Hand

Fly-fishing is really addictive. — Laura Donnelly

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

I fished a little while ago with a man, not in his first youth, who had wasted the flower of his life on business and golf and gardening and motoring and marriage, and had in this way postponed his initiation (to fly fishing) far too long. — Arthur Ransome

Now I am ... like anyone with a strong preference for the fly rod, totally indifferent to how large a fish I catch by comparison with other fishermen. So when a fifteen-year-old called Fred, fishing deep in midsummer with a hideous plastic worm, caught a four and a half pounder ... I naturally felt no resentment beyond wanting to break the kid's thumbs. — Vance Bourjaily

Generally, we are united in the belief that all rod design has been progressive and that the ideas about fly rods in the past were so bad as to make it amazing that people were able to fish at all. — Thomas McGuane

I always say artists must broaden their research. I go to casinos, fly fishing, to show apartments in new residential buildings, watch fairs, the football, ikebana courses, survival expeditions, Dungeons & Dragons nights, and it doesn't matter which of these I personally want to do - that is my job. That's true research; otherwise, it would be a bit like masturbating. — Ryan Gander

I imagine that no art has ever been learned from books. fly-fishing is no exception. — G. E. M. Skues

There is no more graceful and healthful accomplishment for a lady than fly-fishing, and there is no reason why a lady should not in every respect, rival a gentleman in the gentle art. — William Cowper Prime

Trout fisherman often give away their presence to the fish by the equipment they are wearing. The yo-yo hanging on the fly fishing vest that attaches to the hemostats or line clippers is often plated with chrome, giving off flashes of light. Some fly boxes that you wear on the chest are also bright aluminum-not a good idea. I recently fished with a fellow who wore a bright yellow hat on a meadow stream in Pennsylvania. From 100 yards away you could see his every movement,-I'm sure that trout near him could, too. — Lefty Kreh

Spending more time with my fly firmly attached to the branches of trees and almost none of it attached to the lips of a trout. — Tom Sutcliffe

Fly-fishing for wild trout on quiet waters must be one of the toughest and craziest ways to catch fish ever invented by man, as well as among the most frustrating and humiliating. — John D. Voelker

People who are in politics to be right all the time would be better off taking up fly-fishing. It's less dangerous. Politics that is not applied in the real world and doesn't address the real challenges and paradoxes and agonies is a hobby. — Neil Kinnock

Fly fishing is the most beautiful way of trying to catch a fish; not the most efficient, just as ballet is the most beautiful way of moving the body between between two points, not the most direct. Fly fishing is to fishing as ballet is to walking. — Howell Raines

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

The issue of imitation has always occupied fly fishers, and part of its endless attraction has been the imponderable uncertainty of how much it matters to the fish in the first place. — Paul Schullery

He had never seen fly-fishing like this before. There were wet flies, and there were dry flies, but this fly augured into the water with a saw-toothed whine and dragged the fish out backwards. — Terry Pratchett

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

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

The dream is everything in the sport of fishing. You dream with every cast of your fly that the shadowy form will finally rise to your fly. You dream as you drop off to sleep at night about the lunker that got loose just as you were about to net it. — Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

I like to do every operation the same way on each fly. In the course of tying a batch of flies, I might get an idea on how to do something differently, but try to save it to try out later rather than break my comfortable rhythm. I don't worry about forgetting it. In my experience good ideas stay with you, while bad ones go back to where they came from, and good riddance. — John Gierach

The fly angler who says they have never, ever fallen while wading , is either a pathogenic liar, or has never been fly-fishing. — Jimmy Moore

But ah, to fish with a worm, and then not catch your fish! To fail with a fly is no disgrace: your art may have been impeccable, your patience faultless to the end. But the philosophy of worm-fishing is that of results, of having something tangible in your basket when the day's work is done. — Bliss Perry

Once, while cleaning the trout before I went home in the almost night, I had a vision of going over to the poor graveyard and gathering up grass and fruit jars and tin cans and markers and wilted flowers and bugs and weeds and clods and going home and putting a hook in the vise and tying a fly with all that stuff and then going outside and casting it up into the sky, watching it float over clouds and then into the evening star.
(from Trout Fishing on the Bevel, page 21) — Richard Brautigan

Instead of our drab slogging forth and back to the fishing boats, there's reason to live! We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can learn to be free! we can learn to fly! — Richard Bach

There is no greater fan of fly fishing than the worm. — Patrick F. McManus

Fly-fishing is solitary, contemplative, misanthropic, scientific in some hands, poetic in others, and laced with conflicting aesthetic considerations. It's not even clear if catching fish is actually the point. — John Gierach

What did the fish say when it hit a concrete wall?" he asks me. We're sitting on the bank of a stream and he's tying a fly onto my fishing rod, wearing a cowboy hat and a red lumberjack-style flannel shirt over a gray tee. So adorable.
"What?" I say, wanting to laugh and he hasn't even told me the punch line.
He grins. Unbelievable how gorgeous he is. And that he's mine. He loves me and I love him and how rare and beautiful is that?
"Dam!" he says. — Cynthia Hand

Somebody might say that they always wanted to be a fly-fishing guide in Montana and maybe they'll never get to do that but just by the virtue of having said it out loud, I think there's some power in that. — John Lee Hancock

It is not fly fishing if you are not looking for answers to questions. — Norman Maclean

You must feel comfortable with that fly rod in your hand before you spend time, money, and emotional capital on a fishing trip. — The Orvis Company

Finally, Gunner spoke, his voice so fluid and moving, it could have come from the river itself. I once hear a poem about angling. It say when you send out your line, it is like you cast out your troubles to let the current carry them away. I keep casting. — Clare Vanderpool

Fly-fishing is the sport of the thinkers and the dreamers," Gunnar said. "It is the contemplative man's recreation. — Clare Vanderpool

Fly-fishing is a magic way to recapture the rapture of solitude without the pangs of loneliness. — John D. Voelker

In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman. — Norman Maclean

What a tourist terms a plague of insects, the fly fisher calls a great hatch. — Patrick F. McManus

I was 35 years old and in a position to take a shot at whatever I wanted to try. The Air Force said I was too old to fly fighter jets. I thought about becoming a fishing boat captain, before deciding that acting seemed pretty cool. — Jerry Doyle

O, sir, doubt not that Angling is an art; is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? — Izaak Walton

Whether I caught fish or not, just the thrill of rolling out that line and watching my fly turn over has been good enough for me. That and the hundreds of treasured memories I have of this wonderful sport. — Curt Gowdy

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. — John Gay

But when I saw the cursive grace of Guido Rahr's fly line writing prayers I couldn't read to the river gods of Outer Mongolia, I knew my name was written there too. Fly fishing was going to be my version of my father's sport, my nod to my Scottish ancestors and to my self, and to the fish crazed part of America I had claimed as my own. — Jessica Maxwell

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. — Charles Ritz

I go to Alaska and fish salmon. I do some halibut fishing, lake fishing, trout fishing, fly fishing. I look quite good in waders. I love my waders. I don't think there is anything sexier than just standing in waders with a fly rod. I just love it. — Linda Hamilton

When the word began to get out, the idea of tying imitations of aquatic worms was not met with universal approval in the fly-fishing community. It seems that worms had somehow gotten a bad name. I think a fishing pal of mine hit it on the head when he said, It just pisses them off that you can catch trout, I mean really big trout, on a fly that a five-year old can tie in twenty seconds! — Ed Engle

The doctor didn't want me to play golf anymore and was worried about me fly-fishing. Golf is something I enjoy, but fly-fishing is a different thing: That's religion. Hunting is religion for me. I didn't want to give those up. — Tom Brokaw

I personally feel that parachute files give a more realistic impression of an insect to the fish that views the fly, since the hackles are in the same position as the insect's legs, and when tied with brightly colored hackles, these flies are easier to see on the float. A final advantage is that in rough water, a parachute-hackled dry fly will float longer and better than a conventional one — Lefty Kreh

A fan is always an outsider. Most sportswriters are not, by this definition, fans. They capitalize on access to athletes. They spoke to Kobe last night, and Kobe says his finger is going to be fine. They spent three days fly-fishing with Brett Favre in March, and Brett says he's definitely coming back for another season. — Malcolm Gladwell

Buying a fly rod in the average city store, that is, joining it up and safely waggling it a bit, is much like seeing a woman's arm protruding from a car window: all one can readily be sure of is that the window is open. — John D. Voelker

To this day I would rather see a fish, creep up to him and watch his rise to my fly than catch half a dozen fish unseen until they take. — Roderick Haig-Brown

There's more B.S. in fly fishing than there is in a Kansas feedlot. — Lefty Kreh

About the only certainty, other than uncertainty, in fly fishing is that a fly won't catch fish if it stays in its box. — Arnold Gingrich

It is utterly soothing to fly fish for trout. All other considerations or worries drift away and you couldn't keep them close if you wanted. Perhaps it's standing thigh deep in a river with the water passing at the exact but varying speed of life. You easily recognize this mortality and it dissipates into the landscape. — Jim Harrison

Often I have been exhausted on trout streams, uncomfortable, wet, cold, briar scarred, sunburned, mosquito bitten, but never, with a fly rod in my hand have I been less than in a place that was less than beautiful. — Charles Kuralt

And yet there are many times when it does not make any difference what pattern one uses. One thing is certain. The more bedraggled the fly gets the better the trout like it. I think there is a reason for this. I think the bedraggled half worn out wet fly more closely imitates a nymph than a new one does. Most commercial flies are tied too bushy and full. A little trimming of wings and thinning out of hackles will often work wonders. — Ray Bergman

The great charm of fly-fishing is that we are always learning. — Theodore Gordon

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

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

Fly-fishing is the most fun you can have standing up. — Arnold Gingrich

For me, fishing and journalism touched the same places in my head. In comparison with that of poets, the fly fishers' and the journalists' experiences are probably pale flavors, but they carry nonetheless a hint of ambrosia. — Howell Raines

Something to think about: If you fish the wrong fly long and hard enough, it will sooner or later become the right fly. — John Gierach

If fishing is a religion, fly fishing is high church. — Tom Brokaw

It was afternoon as we made our way down to the river, accompanied by a running commentary by Early about whether or not the Lord had actually been fly-fishing.
Jesus did have lots of friends who were fishermen, said Early. Maybe after Peter fell into the Sea of Galilee, he decided to give up deep-sea fishing and take up fly-fishing in the river Jordan. Jesus and Peter were friends, so they have gone together. And besides, Jesus wouldn't have even needed waders, because he could walk on water ... — Clare Vanderpool

Time flies so fast after youth is past that we cannot accomplish one half the many things we have in mind or indeed one half our duties. The only safe and sensible plan is to make other things give way to the essentials, and the first of these is fly fishing. — Theodore Gordon

I was just wondering how long we were going to pretend like we annoyed each other before we started sleeping together. — Beck Anderson

Flyfishing, which has a vaguely mystical aura, is a lot like work. I'm a frenetic flyfisherman. I wade up and down streams, looking for good spots, usually falling and breaking some piece of equipment. Or I stand still and work myself into a frenzy about what fly I should use. I love fishing, but it has never given me a moments peace. — James P. Gorman

I remember the good evenings I have fished, even the ones that realised material hopes not by the fish that came to the fly, but by the colour and movement of the water and sky, by the sounds and scents and gentle stirrings that were all about me. — Roderick Haig-Brown

Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.
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 those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters. — Norman Maclean

For this form of fishing (with a wet fly), the rod is no longer a shooting machine but a receiving post, with super-sensitive antennae, capable of registering immediately the slightest reaction of the fish to the fly. — Charles Ritz

Whether it's fly-fishing, taking your camper to the Everglades, or just traveling, everyone has got a little retirement dream. — Jean Chatzky

I don't really know how to tie a fly until I've tied a hundred dozen of them. — John Gierach