Old Fishing Quotes & Sayings

Grant Allen once said that an Englishman's idea of God was another Englishman twelve feet high, and I suppose that is more or less everybody's idea of God- with the necessary geographical adjustment. Zenith Brown has an idea about God that pleases me. 'God,' says Mrs. Brown, 'is obviously a friendly enough Old Gentleman most of the time, Who wishes us well and tries to see to it that we are reasonably happy. It is equally obvious the He has an idiot brother who takes over the reins whenever God Himself goes fishing. It is when the idiot brother is in charge of things that the world goes wrong and we have wars, famines, and pestilences on earth. — Vincent Starrett

Old Peter Grimes made fishing his employ; His wife he cabined with him and his boy, And seemed that life laborious to enjoy. — George Crabbe

The purpose of a fishing trip is not to catch fish. Bringing home meat is important, but it is more symbolic than necessary, as the new morality of catch-and-release has shown. What is important is what happens between people on fishing trips, especially between uncles and nephews, fathers and sons, old men in general and young boys in particular, it is one of the few times men are together without women. — Paul G. Quinnett

He was one of those supercilious striplings who give you the impression that you went to the wrong school and that your clothes don't fit.
"This is Oswald," said Bingo.
"What," I replied cordially, "could be sweeter? How are you?"
"Oh, all right," said the kid.
"Nice place, this."
"Oh, all right," said the kid.
"Having a good time fishing?"
"Oh, all right," said the kid.
Young Bingo led me off to commune apart.
"Doesn't jolly old Oswald's incessant flow of prattle make your head ache sometimes?" I asked.
Bingo sighed. — P.G. Wodehouse

The old drunk told me about trout fishing. When he could talk, he had a way of describing trout as if they were a precious and intelligent metal. — Richard Brautigan

I walked to the lake and sat on the shore for a few minutes, just staring at the moonlight on the water. Moonlight never gets old. — Bill Barich

One fish. Two fish. Red fish. Blue fish. Black fish. Blue fish. Old fish. New fish. This one has a little star. This one has a little car. Say! What a lot of fish there are. — Dr. Seuss

Nova Scotia is a box bass and a fiddle and German sourdough and scotch eggs. And the air, all heavy and bracing and wet. When you're driving, you wave to the old guy walking along the side of the road in the plaid flannel shirt and he waves back, because it's just what you do. This is an extraordinarily hospitable and musical place. You've got to haul wood in the winter and batten down hatches during hurricanes, and there are bagpipes and banjos and weathered old barns and whales offshore and abandoned fishing boats sleeping on the beach. — Kate Inglis

I found myself, unbidden, thinking of the holy fools in the old story, the ones who went fishing in the lake for the moon, with nets, convinced that the reflection in the water was nearer and easier to catch than the globe that hung in the sky. — Neil Gaiman

-you know no one wanted to see the old boy go. I bet where ever he is, the fishing's good"
"Given his surely behavior, the fish might be fried where he is, — Robyn Carr

(Sadie)"I'm not judging you, Dylan. I love vampire movies. If I looked surprised it was only because it's so different from your TV work, that's all."
His shoulders relaxed a notch. "Sorry. Olly gives me a lot of shit for selling out. He doesn't get that no one is ever going to make his movie about two old men on a fishing trip. Or, even if they do, no one is every going to go see it. — Sarah Mayberry

When she had packed all the artifacts that made up their personal history into liquor store boxes, the house became strictly a feminine place. She stood with her hands on her hips, stoically accepting the absence of old Boston Celtics coasters and the tangle of fishing poles, the old dartboard from a Scots pub, the toolbox and downhill skis, the silky patterned ties which sat in the base of one box like a writing mass of snakes. Without these things, one tended to notice the bright eyelet curtains, the vase filled with yawning crocuses, a needlepoint pillow ... Overall, the house looked much like her apartment had eight years ago, before she had met him. — Jodi Picoult

Sounds like a plan. I owe Tammy a big thank-you." Ty sighed. "I think I'm too old for this bachelor party crap."
"We'll be planning yours soon enough."
That was so not appealing, Ty was almost scared. "Let's just go fishing and call it good."
"Done. — Erin McCarthy

In this quiet, peaceful time of twilight there is, in this great circle of life, an awful lot of hunting and fishing and catching and killing and dying and eating going on all around me. As the old fisherman said, 'That's the way with life. Sometimes you eat well; sometimes you are well-eaten.' — Paul G. Quinnett

White-crested waves crash on the shore. The masts sway violently, every which way. In the gray sky the gulls are circling like white flakes. Rain squalls blow past like gray slanting sails, and blue gaps open in the sky. The air brightens.
A cold silvery evening. The moon is overhead, and down below, in the water; and all around it-a wide frame of old, hammered, scaly silver. Etched on the silver-silent black fishing boats, tiny black needles of masts, little black men casting invisible lines into the silver. And the only sounds are the occasional plashing of an oar, the creaking of an oarlock, the springlike leap and flip-flop of a fish. ("The North") — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Cool! Now I can steal some rich old coot's Ferrari and go fishing for marlin with the same piece of jewelry. — Jennifer Rardin

And then the rains came. They came down from the hills and up from the sound. And it rained a sickness. And it rained a fear. And it rained an odor. And it rained a murder. And it rained dangers and pale eggs of the beast. Rain poured for days, unceasing. Flooding occurred. The wells filled with reptiles. The basements filled with fossils. Mossy-haired lunatics roamed the dripping peninsulas. Moisture gleamed on the beak of the raven. Ancient Shaman's rained from their homes in dead tree trunks, clacked their clamshell teeth in the drowned doorways of forests. Rain hissed on the freeway. It hissed at the prows of fishing boats. It ate the old warpaths, spilled the huckleberries, ran into the ditches. Soaking. Spreading. Penetrating. And it rained an omen. And it rained a poison. And it rained a pigment. And it rained a seizure. — Tom Robbins

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

Teach as an old fishing guide takes out a beginner. — Theodore Roethke

My main aim is getting set up so that when I do quit, I can step away and re-evaluate what I want to do in life. Do I want to get to 50 years old and come back? Or will I just want to go home and be fishing, hunting and working around the house? — Boo Weekley

There's nothing that builds up a toil-weary soul
Like a day on a stream,
Back on the banks of the old fishing hole
Where a fellow can dream.
There's nothing so good for a man as to flee
From the city and lie
Full length in the shade of a whispering tree
And gaze at the sky.
...
It is good for the world that men hunger to go
To the banks of a stream,
And weary of sham and of pomp and of show
They have somewhere to dream.
For this life would be dreary and sordid and base
Did they not now and then
Seek refreshment and calm in God's wide, open space
And come back to be men. — Edgar Guest

'The best thing about hunting and fishing,' the Old Man said, 'is that you don't have to actually do it to enjoy it. You can go to bed every night thinking about how much fun you had twenty years ago, and it all comes back clear as moonlight.' — Robert Ruark

Old Filey lies around the Ravine, a glacial gash running down to Coble Landing. This is the fishing Filey of centuries past, with neat little terraced cottages and a cluster of attractive 18th century houses. — David Hewson

From birth to death, anyone can fish. I just think it's fantastic to see old people going fishing with young people and teaching them things. I'm very, very critical. — Rex Hunt

I would like to take the great DiMaggio fishing," the old man said. "They say his father was a fisherman. Maybe he was as poor as we are and would understand. — Ernest Hemingway,

Along with being forever on the move, one is forever in a hurry, leaving things inadvertently behind-friend or fishing tackle, old raincoat or old allegiance. — Louis Kronenberger

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. — Gene Hill

Fishing: a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes. — Don Marquis

Now, revealing that you're a keeper is no guarantee that this guy won't just walk away. Some men really are just sport fishing and have no intention of doing anything more than throwing back the women they bed. If this is the cae with this man, then let him walk-what do you care? He's not the guy you're looking for. — Steve Harvey

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

As the old saying goes: if you teach a man to fish, he will feed himself for a lifetime. But if you just give him a fishing pole, he'll have to teach himself. — Zechariah Barrett

Hanging from every corner, above every window, standing on every shelf and tabletop, were dozens of handmade birdcages. Nomi had crafted them all, mostly out of old fishing twine, scraps of nets, and chicken wire. Woven in between the bars of the cages were bits of seashells, crab shells, pebbles, and driftwood she had scavenged along the beach. In a pinch she had made a few out of old clothes hangers she had scissored apart and woven together with strips of a negligee or shirt. Each one was personal, each one was unique, each one was a story — Brooke Warra

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

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

Sabine was now sixteen and old enough to begin doing what any girl like her would."
Brazen Mortal crossed her arms over her chest and knowingly said, "Prostitution."
"Wrong. Commercial fishing."
"Really?"
"Noooo," Sabine said. "Fortune-telling. — Kresley Cole

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. — Paul Schullery

A few minutes ago, I felt as if I was back in Paris,
sitting in a park.
It is funny how our mind sometimes wanders
back to times past.

When each of my parents was dying,
floating in a sea of pain medication,
their minds drifted back to their early twenties
when they were newly in love.
They both talked as if they were lost,
and they had to find each other.

In one corner of my house,
I display some things that my parents cherished:
my mother's china
and my father's fishing gear.
I don't know if there is an afterlife,
but if their ghosts visit me someday,
then their cherished things will be waiting for them.
I also display photographs of my late parents,
not when they were old,
but when they were a newlywed couple,
young, happy, smiling
and full of hope
and love. — Jeffrey A. White

Fish sense, applied in the field, is what the old Zen masters would call enlightenment: simply the ability to see what's right there in front of you without having to sift through a lot of thoughts and theories and, yes, expensive fishing tackle. — John Gierach

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. — Liu Zongyuan

He looked at a picture on the wall and saw everything that existed outside the room he was sitting in and the one he was trying to write about. It was a picture of fishing nets stowed in canvas baskets and it had sex, memories, cravings, names of old friends, principal rivers of the world. Writing was bad for the soul when you got right down to it. It protected your worst tendencies. Narrowed everything to failure and its devastations. Gave your cunning an edge of treachery and your jellyfish heart a reason to fall deeper into silence. — Don DeLillo

A sly old fish, too cunning for the hook. — George Crabbe

The real artist with no tear in his eye and no sadness in his heart, puts the pages in the fire and does it again!"
"All art is a metaphor it's by telling you one thing when your mean something else.
The Old Man in the Sea is not about fishing!"
"Writing a book is like torture that you don't know, but after it's done and there it is. It's a joy like unlike anything else, I think it's the closest that a man can come to knowing what is feels like to have a baby. — Harry Crews

When he was about twelve or thirteen he walked into his parents' bedroom in the half-house on Jackson Road not expecting his father to be there, and the old man was standing in front of his bureau in just socks and an undershirt, innocently fishing in a drawer for his undershorts, that boxer style that always looked sad and dreary to Harry anyway, and here was his father's bare behind, such white buttocks, limp and hairless, mute and helpless flesh that squeezed out shit once a day and otherwise hung there in the world like linen that hadn't been ironed ... — John Updike

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. — Lord Byron