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Fly-fishing is solitary, contemplative, misanthropic, scientific in some hands, poetic in others, and laced with conflicting aesthetic considerations. It's not even clear if catching fish is actually the point.

John Gierach

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John Gierach
Age: 78
Born: 1946
Born: January 1
Author
Journalist
Poet
Illinois
USA
Clear
Poetic
Point
Solitary
Actually
Aesthetic
Misanthropic
Others
Fishing
Laced
Hands
Consideration
Conflicting
Even
Fish
Considerations
Fishes
Contemplative
Scientific
Catching

More quotes by John Gierach

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From my own experience I can say that a bad back makes you hike slower, stove-up knees keep you from wading confidently, tendinitis of the elbows buggers your casting, and a dose of giardia can send you dashing to the bushes fifteen times in an afternoon, but although none of this is fun, it's discernibly better than not fishing.
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Something to think about: If you fish the wrong fly long and hard enough, it will sooner or later become the right fly.
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I think I fish, in part, because it's an anti-social, bohemian business that, when gone about properly, puts you forever outside the mainstream culture without actually landing you in an institution.
John Gierach
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It's an odd fact of life that whichever side of the stream you're on, two-thirds of the best water is out of reach on the other side.
John Gierach
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Luckily, though, there are still a few guys around who will look you straight in the eye and say, eloquently and to the point, ‘It’s been too goddamned hot for too long and the river has gone off.’
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Creeps and idiots cannot conceal themselves for long on a fishing trip.
John Gierach
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If we carry purism to it's logical conclusion, to do it right {fishing} you'd have to live naked in a cave, hit your trout on the head with rocks, and eat them raw. But, so as not to violate another essential element of the fly-fishing tradition, the rocks would have to be quarried in England and cost $300 each.
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Fly tackle has improved considerably since 1676, when Charles Cotton advised anglers to 'fish fine and far off,' but no one has ever improved on that statement.
John Gierach
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Really, the only thing a psychiatrist can do that a good (fishing) guide can't is write prescriptions.
John Gierach
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Maybe your stature as a fly fisherman isn't determined by how big a trout you can catch, but by how small a trout you can catch without being disappointed.
John Gierach
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The best fisherman I know try not to make the same mistakes over and over again instead they strive to make new and interesting mistakes and to remember what they learned from them.
John Gierach
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Cell phones have changed us from a nation of self-reliant pioneer types into a bunch of men standing alone in supermarkets saying, ‘Okay, I’m in the tampon aisle, but I don’t see it.'
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The solution to any problem -work, love, money, whatever -is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be.
John Gierach
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Flyfishing does have its social aspects - on some of our crowded trout streams it can get too social - but esentially it's a solitary, contemplative sport. People are left alone with themselves in beautiful surroundings to try to accomplish something that seems to have genuine value.
John Gierach
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They say you forget your troubles on a trout stream, but that's not quite it. What happens is that you begin to see where your troubles fit into the grand scheme of things, and suddenly they're just not such a big deal anymore.
John Gierach
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If people don't occasionally walk away from you shaking their heads, you're doing something wrong.
John Gierach
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I used to like fishing because I thought it had some larger significance. Now I like fishing because it's the one thing I can think of that probably doesn't.
John Gierach
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Fishing in rainy conditions may make fisherman seem crazy to the great mass of unimaginative people, but then few fishermen care what they think
John Gierach
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Lawyers are like nuclear weapons. By all rights they shouldn't exist, but if some people have them, then you'd better have one, too, just in case.
John Gierach
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I still enjoy the company of most dogs more than that of most people, because dogs are capable of uncomplicated enthusiasm.
John Gierach