Eugene Field Quotes

There was never an angler who lived but that there was a fish capable of taking the conceit out of him.

My best fishing-memory is about some fish that I never caught.

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

Trout fishing. One must be a stickler for proper form. Use nothing but #4 blasting caps, or a hand grenade, if handy, or at a pool well-lined with stone, one blast from a .44 magnum will bring a few stunned brookies quietly to the surface.

Fishing is more than fish; it is the vitalizing lure to outdoor life.

Only those become weary of angling who bring nothing to it but the idea of catching fish.

Fishing largely consists of not catching fish; failure is as much a part of the sport as knee injuries are of football.

I fished upstream coming ever closer and closer to the narrow staircase of the canyon. Then I went up into it as if I were entering a department store. I caught three trout in the lost and found department.

During my addled career as a trout fisherman I have gone on a lot of wild-goose chases, and I ruefully expect to go on a lot more before I hang up my waders

Fishing is not like billiards, in which it is possible to attain a disgusting perfection.

I learned to look up suddenly from a hatch or feeding frenzy and find myself momentarily removed from solid earth. I go fishing not to find myself but to lose myself

I should never make anything of a fisherman. I had not got sufficient imagination

Good fishermen know that in talking about fishing, nothing is more interesting than the truth.

Give me mine angle, we'll to th' river: there, My music playing far off, I will betray Tawny-finned fishes. My bended hook shall pierce Their slimy jaws; and as I draw them up, I'll think them every one an Antony, And say, 'Ah, ha! are caught!'

The meditative angler is not exempt from sensational periods. There are times when all the uncertainty of his chosen pursuit seems to condense itself into one big chance, and stand out before him like a salmon on the top wave of a rapid. He sees his luck hangs by a single strand of gut, and he cannot tell whether it will hold or break. This is the thrilling moment and he never forgets it.

I love fishing. You put that line in the water and you don't know what's on the other end. Your imagination is under there.

. . . had I a river I would gladly let all honest anglers that use the fly cast line in it, but, but where there is no protection, then nets, poison, dynamite, slaughter of fingerlings, and unholy baits devastate the fish, so that 'free fishing' spells no fishing at all.

There is a lot of amiable fantasy written about trout fishing, but the truth is that few men know much if anything about the habits of trout and little more about the manner of taking them.

Anglers boast of the innocence of their pastime; yet it puts fellow-creatures to the torture. They pique themselves on their meditative faculties; and yet their only excuse is a want of thought.

These poor rich men, we anglers pity them perfectly.

It may be a weed instead of a fish that, after all my labour, I at last pull up.

No life is so happy and so pleasant as the life of the well-govern'd angler.

The wolf dreads the pitfall, the hawk suspects the snare, and the kite the covered hook.

Fishing is a... discipline in the equality of men - for all men are equal before fish.

Work: a dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.