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

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.

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

It is quite easy to debase the sport, change its values, dilute its ethics and destroy its traditional associations with quietness, relaxation and the opportunity to think. Angling is not a competitive sport. The fisherman'- s only real competition is with his quarry and his only real challenge is the challenge to himself. Nothing can add to this, but the blight of interhuman competition can certainly detract from it.

A fisherman is always hopeful -- nearly always more hopeful than he has any right to be.