There are two distinct visits to tackle-shops, the visit to buy tackle and the visit which may be described as Platonic when, being for some reason unable to fish, we look for an excuse to go in, and waste the tackle dealer's time.

...next to the pleasure of reading a favourite fishing book comes that of persuading a friend to read it too.

Grab a chance and you won't be sorry for a might-have-been.

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.

You write not for children but for yourself. And if by good fortune children enjoy what you enjoy, why then you are a writer of children's books.

Good fishermen know that in talking about fishing, nothing is more interesting than the truth.

Fishing books , lit by emotion recollected in tranquility, are like poetry. .. . We do not think of them as books but as men. They are our companions and not only riverside. Summer and winter they are with us and what a pleasant company they are.