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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.