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.

Cell phones have changed us from a nation of self-reliant pioneer types into a bunch of men standing alone in supermarkets saying, ‘Okay, I’m in the tampon aisle, but I don’t see it.'

The best fisherman I know try not to make the same mistakes over and over again; instead they strive to make new and interesting mistakes and to remember what they learned from them.

The solution to any problem -work, love, money, whatever -is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be.

The things fishermen know about trout aren't facts but articles of faith.

I necessarily fear change except that it's so seldom for the better. It's just that I can live with any number of things going straight to hell as long as these streams continue to hold up. If this amounts to living in a fool's paradise, don't waste your time trying to explain that to the fool.

Accurately recalling an entire day of fishing is like trying to push smoke back down a chimney, so you settle on these specific moments.