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

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

I have been, all my life, what is known as a conservationist. It seems clear beyond possibility of argument that any given generation of men can have only a lease, not ownership, of the earth; and one essential term of the lease is that the earth be handed down on to the next generation with unimpaired potentialities. This is the conservationist's concern.

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

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

I have two hopes for the future. The first and lesser one is that game commissions will one day have sense enough to set limits that measurably reflect the sport safely available. The second and deeply urgent one is that we shall grow a race of sportsmen no one of whom will ever consider it a matter of pride to have killed a limit.

... 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.