I think I fish, in part, because it's an anti-social, bohemian business that, when gone about properly, puts you forever outside the mainstream culture without actually landing you in an institution.

From my own experience I can say that a bad back makes you hike slower, stove-up knees keep you from wading confidently, tendinitis of the elbows buggers your casting, and a dose of giardia can send you dashing to the bushes fifteen times in an afternoon, but although none of this is fun, it's discernibly better than not fishing.

Something to think about: If you fish the wrong fly long and hard enough, it will sooner or later become the right fly.

If people don't occasionally walk away from you shaking their heads, you're doing something wrong.

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.

Successful trout fishing isn't a matter of brute force or even persistence, but something more like infiltration.

I still enjoy the company of most dogs more than that of most people, because dogs are capable of uncomplicated enthusiasm.