Fishing Quotes

“There is a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.”
― Steven Wright

“He liked fishing and seemed to take pride in being able to like such a stupid occupation.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“You see? I know where every single book used to be in the library.' She pointed to the shelf opposite. 'Over there was Catch-22, which was a hugely popular fishing book and one of a series, I believe.”
― Jasper Fforde, Shades of Grey

“You roll back to me.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish.”
― Steven Wright

“You [demagogues] are like the fishers for eels; in still waters they catch nothing, but if they thoroughly stir up the slime, their fishing is good; in the same way it's only in troublous times that you line your pockets.”
― Aristophanes, The Knights

“How do men act on a sinking ship? Do they hold each other? Do they pass around the whisky? Do they cry?”
― Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea

“Anyone can be a fisherman in May.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“These enthusiasts often like to hang signs that say "Gone Fishin'" or "Gone Huntin'". But what these slogans really mean is "Gone Killing.”
― Marc Bekoff, Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect

“Teach all men to fish, but first teach all men to be fair. Take less, give more. Give more of yourself, take less from the world. Nobody owes you anything, you owe the world everything.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“As no man is born an artist, so no man is born an angler.”
― Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation

“And chase hard and good and with no mistakes and do not overrun them.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“When I was in London in 2008, I spent a couple hours hanging out at a pub with a couple of blokes who were drinking away the afternoon in preparation for going to that evening's Arsenal game/riot. Take away their Cockney accents, and these working-class guys might as well have been a couple of Bubbas gearing up for the Alabama-Auburn game. They were, in a phrase, British rednecks. And this is who soccer fans are, everywhere in the world except among the college-educated American elite. In Rio or Rome, the soccer fan is a Regular José or a Regular Giuseppe. [...] By contrast, if an American is that kind of Regular Joe, he doesn't watch soccer. He watches the NFL or bass fishing tournaments or Ultimate Fighting. In an American context, avid soccer fandom is almost exclusively located among two groups of people (a) foreigners—God bless 'em—and (b) pretentious yuppie snobs. Which is to say, conservatives don't hate soccer because we hate brown people. We hate soccer because we hate liberals.”
― Robert Stacy McCain

“I can't bear fishing. I think people look like fools sitting watching a line hour after hour--or else throwing and throwing, and catching nothing.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“I fish because I love to . . . because I love the environs where trout are found . . . because I suspect that men are going along this way for the last time, and I for one don’t want to waste the trip . . . and, finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant––and not nearly so much fun.”
― John Voelker

“...as the old saying goes: if you teach a man to fish, he will feed himself for a lifetime. But if you just give him a fishing pole, he’ll have to teach himself.”
― Zechariah Barrett

“He can't have gone, he said "Christ know he can't have gone. He's making a turn. Maybe he has been hooked before and her remembers something of it." The he felt the gentle touch on the line and he was happy.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“Celebrity chefs are the leaders in the field of food, and we are the led. Why should the leaders of chemical businesses be held responsible for polluting the marine environment with a few grams of effluent, which is sublethal to marine species, while celebrity chefs are turning out endangered fish at several dozen tables a night without enduring a syllable of criticism?”
― Charles Clover, The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat

“...I'm momentarily transfixed, torn between curiosity and fear. I can pull it up the gently sloping mud bank, but then what? Already thought is lagging behind events, as the blotchy brown mass slides up wet mud toward me, its amorphous margins flowing into the craters left by retreating feet. In the center of the yard-wide disc is a raised turret where two eyes open and close, flashing black. And it's bellowing. A loud rhythmic sound that is at first inexplicable until I realize that those blinking eyes are its spiracles, now sucking in air instead of water, which it is pumping out via gill slits on its underside. And all the while it brandishes that blade, stabbing the air like a scorpion...”
― Jeremy Wade, River Monsters: True Stories of the Ones that Didn't Get Away

“Angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.”
― Samuel Johnson

“And, as always, I thank my family who are an amazing network of support.”
― Laisha Rosnau, Notes on Leaving

“It's a fine, warm day,” Henry replied. “I thought a spot of fishing?”

“Just the thing!” said Felix. “Will you join us, Lucy?” Lucy felt Kitty and Sophia staring at her. Well-bred ladies, evidently, did not fish.

“Oh, no! I assure you, Mr. Crowley-Cumberbatch, I have given up those hoyden pursuits of my youth.” She turned to Toby. “I haven't been fishing in ages. I can't remember the last time.”

“Really, Luce?” Toby sounded incredulous. “Henry—is it true?”

Henry sawed away at a slice of ham. “If you count six days as ages, then I suppose it's true. But if you can't remember six days back, Lucy, and you've forgotten Felix's Christian name, I'm concerned for you. Perhaps you've been spending too much time with Aunt Matilda.”
― Tessa Dare, Goddess of the Hunt

“— И что это у нас?
— Ну раз мы летим на катере, то можем взять с собой еще больше, чем в лес, — беззаботно пояснил Фрэнк. — Так что кроме палатки, аптечки, генератора и…
— Стоп! — вскинул руку капитан. — Я понял. Уточняю вводную. Мы летим на рыбалку. На катере. На пару часов, не более. Вопрос: что из снаряжения жизненно необходимо, подчеркиваю, необходимо для выполнения этой задачи?
— Наверное… — Взгляд навигатора пометался между сумкой и коробками, после чего зафиксировался на капитанских ботинках. — Удочки?
— Неправильный ответ. Правильный ответ, — добавил капитан, так и не дождавшись от Фрэнка иных предположений, — «мозги»!
— Для приманки?”
― Ольга Громыко, Космобиолухи

“Bycatch and discards are a fact of life to a fisherman. There is no fishing method that catches only the quarry. ...The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about a third of what is caught worldwide, some 29 million tons, goes over the side. This takes what is hauled from the sea to around 132 million tons a year. Add to that the number of organisms that are killed or damaged by net, line, or trap and are never landed--such as whales, porpoises, turtles, and birds--and the number of animals destroyed on the bottom, and the total catch by fishermen reaches something more like 220 million tons a year. Consider that much of the weight of palatable fish is head, cartilage, bone, and offal, which goes over the side or is thrown away by processors. Consider also that about 44 million tons of fish are caught to make industrial products and food for farmed fish. Consider that some of the palatable fish caught will be turned into products for other than human consumption--as cat food, for instance. Consider that there may be an element of waste because some fish will not sell. Taking all these things into account, it is possible to conclude that the amount of protein eaten by someone or something is maybe less than 20 percent of the 104 million tons landed, and only 10 percent of the amount of marine animals destroyed annually in the oceans. These are rough figures, but, given a wide margin of error, they are about right. So catching wild fish is a wasteful business.”
― Charles Clover, The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat

“By 2030, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, fish farming will dominate fish supplies. Given how wrong the FAO has been in the past--saying catches were going up when, in fact, they were going down--this statement is worth examining carefully. When you do, you find it to be an observation of previous trends, not a reflection of what could happen or what people might want--in the same way as Red Delicious was once far and away the most popular apple in the United States because it was basically the only apple you could get. The FAO is simply observing that fish farming is the fastest growing form of food production in the world--growing at 9 percent a year and by 12-13 percent in the United States. Nobody is asking us whether we want this. It is just happening. The continued destruction of mangrove swamps in poor countries to provide shrimp for people living in rich countries is simply the market operating in a vacuum untroubled by ethics. It is a reflection of what will go on happening if we do not find ways of exercising any choice in the matter.”
― Charles Clover, The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat

“he world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”
― Saint Augustine

“All I had was an old bamboo pole that was cracked at the base, a handful of rusty hooks, a coffee can full of worms, and a listless summer’s afternoon sitting on an aging dock. And the greatest joy on any one of those many summer days was not catching the fish that filled my bucket. Rather, it was to release them at the end of the day so that they might fill the bucket of another.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“K is for Kite
Today we have gone fishing. Dad's excited, so am I.
He's angling in the ocean. Me? I'm fishing in the sky.
Dad cast his line. Hours have passed. He hasn't had one bite.
I feel a sharp tug on my string. Hurray, I've caught a kite.
My catch is big and colorful, and trails a bow-tied tail.
My dad is packing up his bait, his hooks, his rod and reel.
When I get home, I'll show my prize and put it on display.
When Dad gets home he'll tell tall tales of fish that got away.”
― Richard Michelson, S Is for Sea Glass: A Beach Alphabet

“Identifying myself as a fishing pole will not catch any fish.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“The boy in me still carries the memories of those days when I lifted crab pots out of the Colleton River before dawn, when I was shaped by life on the river, part child, part sacristan of tides.”
― Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides