Fishing is such great fun, I have often felt, that it really ought to be done in bed.  John Voelker 1974

You must remember that there's plenty of salt in the sea to take with the tales your fellow fishermen tell. John Hersey 1987

I get all the truth I need in the newspaper every morning, and every chance I get I go fishing, or swap stories with fishermen to get the taste of it out of my mouth.  Ed Zern 1977

Trout thrive best in water with a high mineral content, while this is the very sort of water that is worst for making Tennessee whiskey. This is why one never finds a trout in a fifth of Jack Daniel's. Or vice versa.   Milford Stanley Poltroon 1977

There were lots of people who committed crimes during the year who would not have done so if they had been fishing, and I assure you that the increase in crime is due to a lack of those qualities of mind and character which impregnate the soul of every fisherman except those who get no bites.  Herbert Hoover 1930

Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, we also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing.  John 21:3

An old legend holds that since the Bible says “God created all the great sea monsters” on the fourth day (Genesis 1:21), Thursday is the best day to watch for them to appear.

All Americans believe that they are born fishermen. For a man to admit to a distaste for fishing would be like denouncing mother-love and hating moonlight.  John Steinbeck 1954

If a little madness be a necessary requisite to obtain the ultimate in the pleasure of angling -- then, O Lord, give me insanity! John Alden Knight 1936

If the old boy [Izaak Walton] occasionally stretched the truth, it strikes me that it makes him an even more appropriate father figure for a cult whose members are often given to hyperbole.  Robert Diendorfer 1977

And when he struck his first cod, and felt the fish take the hook, a kind of big slow smile went over his features, and he said, “Gentlemen, this is solid comfort.” Stephen Vincent Benet 1932

If you ever wondered why fishing is probably the most popular sport in this country, watch that boy beside the brook and you will learn. If you are really perceptive you will. For he already knows that fishing is only one part fish.  Hal Borland 1954

Now I am . . . like anyone with a strong preference for the fly rod, totally indifferent to how large a fish I catch by comparison with other fishermen. So when a fifteen-year-old called Fred, fishing deep in midsummer with a hideous plastic worm, caught a four and a half pounder . . . I naturally felt no resentment beyond wanting to break the kid's thumbs. Vance Bourjaily 1981

With nary one fish to show for his day with rod and reel, an amateur fisherman stopped at a market on his way home and thoughtfully bought a dozen trout. He then ordered the fish man to throw them to him one at a time. “When I tell my wife,” he explained to the mystified fish man, “that I catch fish -- I catch them!”  Bennett Cerf 1965

It is just possible that nice guys don't catch the most fish. But they find far more pleasure in those they do get. Roderick Haig-Brown 1960

Whenever I find myself growing green about the mouth; whenever it is a damp drizzly November in my soul; and especially whenever it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from methodically knocking peoples hats off -- then, I account it high time to get to sea. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but know it, almost all men in their degree cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.  Herman Melville, Moby Dick

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