A fisherman’s philosophy …..in quotes

Reading my way through the tomes that cascade from my over-full bookshelf, is something I take great pleasure in doing. There is something satisfying in reading a message that resonates, written in so  beautiful, and poetic a style that it causes you to lower the book and nod or mumble something. I mumble and nod a lot. It is a way of wallowing in a thought well presented, a way of immersing yourself in a moment shared eruditely in print. 

My family have stopped responding with questions to all my mumbling and nodding. So I will share some with you:

“How often fishing leads a man to find beauty otherwise never seen! I am rich in having a treasure store of such places”  Zane Grey, Tales of the Angler’s Eldorado

“The man who hurries through a Trout stream defeats himself. Not only does he take few fish but he has no time for observation, and his experience is likely to be of little value to him” George La Branche  The Dry Fly on Fast Water.

“The secret of successful fishing is to expect it….Hope should be in the fisherman’s heart , expectancy in his hand , and his motto should be “you can never tell”  “ Robert Hartman, About fishing

“Now that I care less, I fish better” Andrew Brown,  Fishing in Utopia

“Fisherman who care too much about the size and numbers of fish they catch are insufferable on good days and as harried as overworked executives on slow ones. On the other hand, it is possible to be a happy angler who doesn’t catch many fish; its just that no one will ever say you’re good at it”     John Gierach, Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers.

“Perhaps the power of fly-fishing (and the comparisons it invites) lies not in its confrontation with meaning, but its escape from it.”  Maximillian Werner , Black River Dreams

“Flyfishing has many attributes , but none more pleasing than its ability to find and liberate the young boy that still hides within me and to let that boy live again without embarrassment or regret, sorrow or anguish” Harry Middleton, On The Spine of Time.

“Several times she has fallen asleep during my diatribes  and I know perhaps the largest truth of this business of angling: it is private, and teaches privateness and the quiet satisfaction of something sweet and full inside”  Nick Lyons, Seasonable Angler.

Let me stop there, lest you fall asleep during this diatribe, but I think you get the idea:  An immersed  fisherman who doesn’t read, achieves immersion in shallower water.  

You may nod and mumble now…