Fly tackle has improved considerably since 1676, when Charles Cotton advised anglers to 'fish fine and far off,' but no one has ever improved on that statement.

Maybe your stature as a fly fisherman isn't determined by how big a trout you can catch, but by how small a trout you can catch without being disappointed.

We do have to think seriously about conservation now, although it is chilling to realize there are catch-and-release fishermen alive today who don't know how to clean and fry a fish.

I like to do every operation the same way on each fly. In the course of tying a batch of flies, I might get an idea on how to do something differently, but try to save it to try out later rather than break my comfortable rhythm. I don't worry about forgetting it. In my experience good ideas stay with you, while bad ones go back to where they came from, and good riddance.

Sure, it was your idea and your fly, but he caught the big fish. Remember, fairness is a human idea largely unknown in nature.

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

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.