... To this day I would rather see a fish, creep up to him and watch his rise to my fly than catch half a dozen fish unseen until they take.

Our tradition is that of the first man who sneaked away to the creek when the tribe did not really need fish.

A river is water is its loveliest form; rivers have life and sound and movement and infinity of variation, rivers are veins of the earth through which the lifeblood returns to the heart

A man should think when he fishing of all manner and shape of things, flowing as easily through the mind as the light stream among the rocks

I remember the good evenings I have fished, even the ones that realised material hopes not by the fish that came to the fly, but by the colour and movement of the water and sky, by the sounds and scents and gentle stirrings that were all about me.

I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel.

I have fished through fishless days that I remember happily without regret.