There is something special about fly fishing and if you are a fly fisherman, then you’ll know what I’m talking about.
It’s just different from any other form of fishing, but don’t just take my word for it – find out what other fly fishing enthusiasts think and their best fly fishing quotes below that bring those thoughts and feelings to life.
What is so special about fly fishing?
Firstly, you couldn’t come up with a harder way of catching a fish. Between the cast, the fly selection, and all the other obstacles, you have to be connected to the fish to fool them. Fly fishing goes so far beyond throwing a baited hook into a pond.
It’s also active fishing, there is no sitting on a chair waiting for a fish to eat a worm, you’re always standing, walking up river, or casting. And casting is something in itself, you get lost in the rhythm and the world somehow disappears, it’s like meditation.
Wonders of Fly Fishing
I can go on for hours about why fly fishing is great but my last point is how connected to nature you become and need to be. You fish in extraordinary places that no one but a fly fisherman would go, from atolls in the Indian Ocean to the most remote rivers you can find.
To catch a fish there, you look at the flowers, the flies, and have encounters with the wild life that didn’t expect you to be there.
These are just some of the beauties of fly fishing and you’ll find some of the quotes below say the same.
The Best Fly Fishing Quotes
Quotes About The Beauty Of Fly Fishing
“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
“Fly-fishing may well be considered the most beautiful of all rural sports.” – Frank Forester
“To go fishing is the chance to wash one’s soul with pure air, with the rush of the brook, or with the shimmer of sun on blue water. It brings meekness and inspiration from the decency of nature, charity toward tackle-makers, patience toward fish, a mockery of profits and egos, a quieting of hate, a rejoicing that you do not have to decide a darned thing until next week. And it is discipline in the equality of men – for all men are equal before fish.” – Herbert Hoover
“The traveler fancies he has seen the country. So he has the outside of it at least; but the angler only sees the inside. The angler only is brought close, face to face with the flower and bird and insect life of the rich riverbanks, the only part of the landscape where the hand of man has never interfered.” – Charles Kingsley
“Fly-fishing is the most fun you can have standing up.” – by Arnold Gingrich, 1969~
“Unless one can enjoy himself fishing with the fly, even when his efforts are unrewarded, he loses much real pleasure. More than half the intense enjoyment of fly-fishing is derived from the beautiful surroundings, the satisfaction felt from being in the open air, the new lease of life secured thereby, and the many, many pleasant recollections of all one has seen, heard and done.” – by Charles F. Orvis, 1886
“…the things we desire or need may kill us. This can be another reason to take a fly rod in hand and enjoy the environment in and around a stream, and for brief periods of time leave behind all the things you cannot change.” – David Stuver, Familiar Waters: A lifetime of fly fishing Montana
Quotes About How Challenging Fly Fishing Is
“Only an extraordinary person would purposely risk being outsmarted by a creature often less than twelve inches long, over and over again.” – Janna Bialek
“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.” – by Jack Ohman, Fear of Fly Fishing, 1988
“To him, all good things – trout as well as eternal salvation- come by grace, and grace comes by art, and art does not come easy.” – Norman Maclean from the book “A River Runs Through It”
“Be patient and calm – for no one can catch fish in anger.” – Herbert Hoover
“There’s no taking trout with dry breeches.” – Miguel de Cervantes
Quotes About One’s Connection With Fly Fishing
“The finest gift you can give to any fisherman is to put a good fish back, and who knows if the fish that you caught isn’t someone else’s gift to you?” – Lee Wulff
“If fishing is like religion, then fly-fishing is high church.” – Tom Brokaw
“For the supreme test of a fisherman is not how many fish he has caught, not even how he has caught them, but what he has caught when he has caught no fish.” – John H. Bradley
“Three-fourths of the Earth’s surface is water, and one-fourth is land. It is quite clear that the good Lord intended us to spend triple the amount of time fishing as taking care of the lawn.” – Chuck Clark
“The climax in the poem of trouting, is the spring of the split bamboo.” – Lewis France, 1884
“A trout is a moment of beauty known only to those who seek it.” – Arnold Gingrich
“They say you forget your troubles on a trout stream, but that’s not quite it. What happens is that you begin to see where your troubles fit into the grand scheme of things, and suddenly they’re just not such a big deal anymore.” – John Gierach
“There is certainly something in angling that tends to produce a serenity of mind.” -Washington Irving
“I have many loves and Fly-Fishing is one of them; it brings peace and harmony to my being, which I can then pass on to others.” – Sue Kreutzer
“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.” -by Henry David Thoreau
“Listen to the sound of the river and you will get a trout.” – Irish proverb
“Some go to church and think about fishing, others go fishing and think about God.” -by Tony Blake
“One thing becomes clearer as one gets older and one’s fishing experience increases, and that is the paramount importance of one’s fishing companions.” – John Ashley-Cooper
Quotes About How Different Fly Fishing Is
“What a tourist terms a plague of insects, the fly fisher calls a great hatch.” – Patrick F. McManus
“If I fished only to capture fish, my fishing trips would have ended long ago.” – Zane Grey
“Game fish are too valuable to only be caught once.” – Lee Wulff
“It is only the inexperienced and thoughtless who find pleasure in killing fish for the mere sake of killing them. No sportsman does this.” – Lee Wulff, The Atlantic Salmon
“O, sir, doubt not that Angling is an art; is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly?” – Isaak Walton
Humorous Quotes About Fly Fishing
“The difference between fly fishers and worm dunkers is the quality of their excuses.” – Anonymous
“I look into… my fly box, and think about all the elements I should consider in choosing the perfect fly: water temperature, what stage of development the bugs are in, what the fish are eating right now. Then I remember what a guide told me: ‘Ninety percent of what a trout eats is brown and fuzzy and about five-eighths of an inch long.” – Allison Moir
“Creeps and idiots cannot conceal themselves for long on a fishing trip.” – John Gierach
“Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.” – Samuel Johnson
“There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot.” – Steven Wright
“My biggest worry is that my wife (when I’m dead) will sell my fishing gear for what I said I paid for it.” – by Koos Brandt
“The gods do not deduct from man’s allotted span the hours spent in fishing.” – Herber Hoover
“If people concentrated on the really important things of life, there’d be a shortage of fishing poles.” – Doug Larson
“I am not against golf, since I cannot but suspect it keeps armies of the unworthy from discovering trout.” – Paul O’Neil
“Scholars have long known that fishing eventually turns men into philosophers. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to buy decent tackle on a philosopher’s salary.” – Patrick F. McManus
“Calling Fly Fishing a hobby is like calling Brain Surgery a job.” – Paul Schullery
“Do not tell fish stories where the people know you. Particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.” – Mark Twain
Flying Out
Thanks for reading my favorite fly fishing quotes. I hope you enjoyed it and please let me know what you thought in the comments section below.
The quotes above epitomize by my addiction to fly fishing and probably yours too, some are funny while some are spot on about how this sport make us feel.
