A Quote by John D. Voelker

Fly-fishing for wild trout on quiet waters must be one of the toughest and craziest ways to catch fish ever invented by man, as well as among the most frustrating and humiliating.
It is well known that no person who regards his reputation will ever kill a trout with anything but a fly. It requires some training on the part of the trout to take to this method. The uncultivated, unsophisticated trout in unfrequented waters prefers the bait; and the rural people, whose sole object in going a-fishing appears to be to catch fish, indulge them in their primitive taste for the worm. No sportsman however, will use anything but the fly, except when he happens to be alone.
I go to Alaska and fish salmon. I do some halibut fishing, lake fishing, trout fishing, fly fishing. I look quite good in waders. I love my waders. I don't think there is anything sexier than just standing in waders with a fly rod. I just love it.
Fly fishing is the most beautiful way of trying to catch a fish; not the most efficient, just as ballet is the most beautiful way of moving the body between between two points, not the most direct. Fly fishing is to fishing as ballet is to walking.
When the word began to get out, the idea of tying imitations of aquatic worms was not met with universal approval in the fly-fishing community. It seems that worms had somehow gotten a bad name. I think a fishing pal of mine hit it on the head when he said, It just pisses them off that you can catch trout, I mean really big trout, on a fly that a five-year old can tie in twenty seconds!
Catching fish is not a mental game between fish and angler. A 'smart' trout is only smarter than other trout, not smarter than a fisherman. An angler must take the puzzle of the day's conditions, and matching those conditions and his knowledge of the fish come up with a good catch. He competes with a concept, not with a fish's brain.
About the only certainty, other than uncertainty, in fly fishing is that a fly won't catch fish if it stays in its box.
I grew up fly fishing when I was a kid. The feeling of it is fun. I went fly-fishing on Lake Delaware once, and I caught a record brook trout.
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.
Loads of overtaking is boring. You go fishing and you catch a fish every ten minutes and it's boring. But if you site there all day, and you catch one mega fish, you come back with stories that you caught a fish this big (indicates a big fish), intead of this size (indicating a small fish)
You must lose a fly to catch a trout.
Fly fishing is not about catching the fish. It is about enjoying the water, the breeze, the fish swimming all around. If you catch one, good. If you don't...that is even better. That mean you come out and get to try all over again.
It is well known that no person who regards his reputation will ever kill a trout with anything but a fly. It requires some training on the part of the trout to take to this method.
Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.
Trout fisherman often give away their presence to the fish by the equipment they are wearing. The yo-yo hanging on the fly fishing vest that attaches to the hemostats or line clippers is often plated with chrome, giving off flashes of light. Some fly boxes that you wear on the chest are also bright aluminum-not a good idea. I recently fished with a fellow who wore a bright yellow hat on a meadow stream in Pennsylvania. From 100 yards away you could see his every movement,-I'm sure that trout near him could, too.
I know I'm a long way from greatness, but I am beginning to come at it in my own way. I can go through the basic motions pretty well, don't rely quite as religiously on specific fly patterns as I once did, have worked out ways of compensating for some of my most egregious weaknesses and have come to count heavily on timing because it's a hell of a lot easier to catch fish when the fish are biting.
It's nice, when fishing, to catch a fish. But it doesn't really matter if you don't. What you always catch is a quiet time sitting at the water's edge, or in a gently rocking boat, a silent time of water and sky and the movement of natural things.
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