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

Perhaps fishing is, for me, only an excuse to be near rivers.

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.

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.

Wherever we go in the world we find other men speaking the same language, planning the same plans, dreaming the same dreams. And one of the big four - brownie, or brookie, cutthroat or rainbow - is the cause of it all

Anglers...exaggerate grossly and make gentle and inoffensive creatures sound like wounded buffalo and man-eating tigers.

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