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Up i' the early morning, Sleepy pleasures scorning, Rod in hand and creel on back, I'm away, away! Not a care to vex me, Nor a fear to perplex me, Blithe as any bird that pipes in the merry May. Out come reel and tackle, Out come midge and hackle, Length of gut, like gossamer, on the south wind streaming. Brace of palmers fine, As ever decked a line, Dubbed with herl and ribbed with gold, in the sunlight streaming.
It is not difficult to learn how to cast; but it is difficult to learn not to snap the flies off at every throw.
To him, all good things -- trout as well as eternal salvation-- come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.
Go, take thine angle, and with practiced line, Light as the gossamer, the current sweep; And if thou failest in the calm still deep In this rough eddy, may a prize be thine. Say thou'rt unlucky where the sunbeams shine; Beneath the shadow, where these flowing waters creep, Perchance the monarch of the brook shall leap. For fate is ever better than design Still persevere: the giddiest breeze that blows For thee may blow with fame and fortune rife; Be prosperous, and what care if it arose Out of some pebble with the stream at strife, Or that the light wind dallied with the leafy boughs? Though art successful - such is human life!
Calling Fly Fishing a hobby is like calling Brain Surgery a job.
What pretty bright trout there are in this bold rock creek! It would full be called a river in England, and so it is!
And this our life, exempt from public haunt Finds tongues in trees, and books in running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything. I would not change it.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.
"Bass fishermen watch Monday night football, drink beer, drive pickup trucks and prefer noisy women with big breasts. Trout fishermen watch MacNeil-Lehrer, drink white wine, drive foreign cars with passenger-side air bags and hardly think about women at all. This last characteristic may have something to do with the fact that trout fishermen spend most of the time immersed up to the thighs in ice-cold water."
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