Fishing quotes roll off the tongues of experienced anglers. Why? We have plenty of time to think about them. Someone once said that distaste for fishing is nothing less than hating the moonlight or denouncing a mother’s love.
There is nothing like fishing in this world. It is an art for some, a sport for others, but it’s indefinable for many. It’s an enigma to many and something that makes them feel closer to themselves.
There are very few things in life that allow you to unwind from the pressures of life, like fishing. The time you spend fishing, you will love every minute of it. Here are some beautiful and funny fishing quotes and sayings that will make you feel even more special about fishing.
Good Fishing Quotes
1.) Scholars have long known that fishing eventually turns men into philosophers. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to buy decent tackle on a philosopher’s salary.
Patrick McManus
2.) There is certainly something in angling that tends to produce a serenity of the mind.
Washington Irving
3.) When they go fishing, it is not really the fish they are after. It is a philosophic meditation.
E.T. Brown
4.) I don’t exaggerate – I just remember big.
Chi Chi Rodriguez
5.) I’m a man of few words; let’s fish.
Unknown
6.) I am firmly convinced that the ideal combination leading to a happy life is to have the time to both fish and read.
Brian Murphy
Funny Fishing Quotes
7.) Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
George Carlin
8.) Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not the fish they are after.
Henry David Thoreau
9.) Nothing makes a fish bigger than almost being caught.
Unknown
10.) There’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.
Steven Wright
11.) I only make movies to finance my fishing.
Lee Marvin
12.) I used to go fishing until one day, it struck me: You can buy fish. What the heck am I doing in a boat at 4:30 in the morning? If I want a hamburger, I don’t track cattle down.
Kenny Rogerson
13.) There is no greater fan of fly fishing than the worm.
Patrick F. McManus
14.) The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad.
A. Best
15.) Whoever came up with ice fishing must have had the worst marriage on the planet.
Jeff Cesario
16.) I like fishing, but I don’t have any patience. So I use an aquarium.
Craig Sharf
Hilarious
17.) If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there’d be a shortage of fishing poles.
Doug Larson
18.) A bad day of fishing is better than a good day of work.
Unknown
19.) Don’t tell fish stories where the people know you, but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.
Mark Twain
20.) Calling fishing a hobby is like calling brain surgery a job.
Paul Schullery
21.) Give a man a fish, and he has food for a day; teach him how to fish, and you can get rid of him for the entire weekend.
Zenna Schaffer
22.) Fishing, with me, has always been an excuse to drink in the daytime.
Jimmy Cannon
Amusing Fishing Quotes
23.) I got a fishing rod for my wife – good trade,
Unknown
24.) Bragging may not bring happiness, but no man, having caught a large fish, goes home through an alley.
Unknown
25.) If I fished only to capture fish, my fishing trips would have ended long ago.
Zane Grey
26.) There he stands, draped in more equipment than a telephone lineman, trying to outwit an organism with a brain no bigger than a breadcrumb and getting licked in the process.
Paul O’Neil
27.) Comedians get jokes offered to them, rock stars get women and underwear thrown on stage, and I get guys that want to take me fishing.
Les Claypool
28.) Scholars have long known that fishing eventually turns men into philosophers. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to buy decent tackle on a philosopher’s salary.
Patrick McManus
29.) Most fishermen swiftly learn that it’s a pretty good rule never to show a favorite spot to any fisherman you wouldn’t trust with your wife.
John Voelker
30.) We ask a simple question, and that is all we wish… Are all fishermen liars, or do only liars fish?
William Sherwood Fox
31.) There he stands, draped in more equipment than a telephone lineman, trying to outwit an organism with a brain no bigger than a breadcrumb and getting licked in the process.
Paul O’Neil
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Fisherman Quotes
32.) There are always new places to go fishing. For any fisherman, there’s always a new place, always a new horizon.
Jack Nicklaus
33.) In Montana, whether you’re a farmer, whether you’re a fisherman… you know that the climate is changing, and we need to do something about it.
Steve Bullock
34.) …of all the liars among mankind, the fisherman is the most trustworthy.
William Sherwood Fox
35.) You need a good gardener and a good fisherman. The cook is not required.
Alain Ducasse
36.) Most of the world is covered by water. A fisherman’s job is simple: Pick out the best parts.
Charles Waterman
37.) Fly fishermen are born honest, but they get over it.
Ed Zern
38.) Anyone can be a fisherman in May.
Ernest Hemingway
Inspirational Fishing Quotes
39.) There are two types of fishermen – those who fish for sport and those who fish for fish.
Unknown
40.) All the romance of trout fishing exists in the mind of the angler and is in no way shared by the fish.
Harold F. Blaisdell
41.) The best way to a fisherman’s heart is through his fly.
Unknown
42.) Creeps and idiots cannot conceal themselves for long on a fishing trip.
John Gierach
43.) Having a fishing rod in your hand is merely an excuse to explore out-of-sight depths and reveal mysteries that previously only existed in dreams.
Fennel Hudson
44.) My biggest worry is that when I’m dead and gone, my wife will sell my fishing gear for what I said I paid for it.
Koos Brandt
Love of Fishing Quotes
45.) Probably fishing is my first passion.
Luke Bryan
46.) When I’m out, there’s no cell phone ringing. I’m out there fishing with bears. I’m in the middle of God’s country, catching tons of fish. I just absolutely love it.
Rich Barry
47.) If your concentration is getting bad, take up bass fishing. It will really improve your ability to focus. If you aren’t ready when that fish hits, you can’t set the hook.
Lee Trevino
48.) The fishing is a great relief for me. When I’m out, there’s no cell phone ringing. I’m out there fishing with bears. I’m in the middle of God’s country, catching tons of fish. I just absolutely love it.
Rich Barry
49.) I do fish. I think there is a connection between thinking and fishing mostly because you spend a lot of time up to your waist in water without a whole lot to keep your mind busy.
Anthony Doerr
50.) 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
51.) The only thing bad about winning the pennant is that you have to manage the All-Star Game the next year. I’d rather go fishing for three days.
Whitey Herzog
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Fishing Sayings
52.) Look at where Jesus went to pick people. He didn’t go to colleges… he got guys off the fishing docks.
Jeff Foxworthy
53.) Gone fishin’, be back at dark-thirty!
Unknown
54.) There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot.
Steven Wright
55.) Fishing is a hard job. Fishing at night. Rain. Day, night… You have to be wise and smart. And quick.
Mariano Rivera
56.) Some go to church and think about fishing; others go fishing and think about God.
Tony Blake
57.) Anytime I can sneak in a moment to fish and ride horses, I’m a happy camper!
George Foreman
58.) If fishing is interfering with your business, give up your business.
Sparse Grey Hackle
Good Fishing Insights
59.) What a tourist terms a plague of insects, the fly fisher calls a great hatch.
Patrick F. McManus
60.) Somebody behind you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl.
Ernest Hemingway
61.) If fishing is religion, fly fishing is high church.
Tom Brokaw
62.) Be patient and calm—for no one can catch fish in anger.
Herbert Hoover
63.) 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.
Norman Maclean
64.) The best time to go fishing is when you can get away.
Robert Traver
65.) It has always been my private conviction that any man who pits his intelligence against a fish and loses has it coming.
John Steinbeck
66.) I’ve gone fishing thousands of times in my life, and I have never once felt unlucky or poorly paid for those hours on the water.
William Tapply
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Quotes About Fishing
67.) Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers.
Herbert Hoover
68.) The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions of hope.
John Buchan
69.) There are only two occasions when Americans respect privacy, especially in Presidents. Those are prayer and fishing.
Herbert Hoover
70.) 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.
Robert Altman
71.) Angling may be said to be so like mathematics that it can never be fully learned.
Izaak Walton
72.) Three-fourths of the Earth’s surface is water, and one-fourth is land. It is quite clear that the good Lord intended us to spend triple the amount of time fishing as taking care of the lawn.
Chuck Clark
73.) Fishing is a discipline in the equality of men–for all men are equal before fish.
Herbert Hoover
74.) The act of fishing – for fish, dreams, or whatever magic is available – is enough.
Fennel Hudson
75.) Game fish are too valuable to be caught only once.
Lee Wulff
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Best Fishing Insights
76.) As no man is born an artist, so no man is born an angler.
Izaak Walton
77.) Good things come to those who bait.
Unknown
78.) Even if you’ve been fishing for three hours and haven’t gotten anything except poison ivy and sunburn, you’re still better off than the worm.
Unknown
79.) May the holes in your net be no larger than the fish in it.
Irish Proverb
80.) It is the goings-on between bites that excites the traditional angler as much as when the float goes under.
Fennel Hudson
81.) It is not a fish until it is on the bank.
British Proverb
82.) There’s always an opportunity to fish for something – even if it’s just for laughs or ideas.
Fennel Hudson
83.) Cast away your troubles. Go fishings.
Unknown
84.) Early to bed, Early to rise, Fish all day, Make up lies.
Unknown
85.) The gods do not deduct from man’s allotted span the hours spent in fishing.
Babylonian Proverb
86.) You cannot catch trout with dry breeches.
Spanish Proverb
87.) Nothing makes a fish bigger than almost being caught.
Unknown
Inspirational Fishing Quotes
88.) Fishing is not an escape from life but often a deeper immersion into it,
Harry Middleton
89.) Many of the most highly publicized events of my presidency are not nearly as memorable or significant in my life as fishing with my daddy.
Jimmy Carter
90.) The act of fishing – for fish, dreams, or whatever magic is available – is enough. It transports us to a special world and a state of mind where we are free.
Fennel Hudson
91.) When I go fishing, I like to know that there’s nobody within five miles of me.
Norman MacCaig
92.) I thoroughly enjoy getting away from the game and going out fishing because it’s so relaxing, so quiet, and peaceful.
Tiger Woods
93.) One thing becomes clearer as one gets older and one’s fishing experience increases, and that is the paramount importance of one’s fishing companions.
John Ashley Cooper
94.) Fishing provides that connection with the whole living world. It gives you the opportunity of being totally immersed, turning back into yourself in a good way. A form of meditation, some form of communion with levels of yourself that are deeper than the ordinary self.
Ted Hughes
95.) Fishing in a place is a meditation on the rhythm of a tide, a season, an arc of a year, and the seasons of life.
Carl Safina
96.) Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
Lao Tzu
Love of Fishing Quotes
97.) I fish because I love to, not because I regard fishing as so terribly important but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of man are equally unimportant and not nearly so much fun.
Unknown
98.) I have fished through fishless days that I remember happily without regret.
Roderick Haig Brown
99.) I thoroughly enjoy getting away from the game and going out fishing because it’s so relaxing, so quiet, and peaceful. I mean, there’s no noise other than nature… and it’s so different from what I do in a tournament situation that it just eases my mind.
Tiger Woods
100.) It is to be observed that ‘angling’ is the name given to fishing by people who can’t fish.
Stephen Leacock
101.) There will be days when the fishing is better than one’s most optimistic forecast others when it is far worse. Either is a gain over just staying home.
Roderick Haig Brown
102.) Angling is extremely time-consuming. That’s sort of the whole point.
Thomas McGuane
103.) Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but while I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.
Henry David Thoreau
Motivational Fishing Quotes
104.) There are only two occasions when Americans respect privacy, especially in Presidents. Those are prayer and fishing.
Herbert Hoover
105.) Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes.
Don Marquis
106.) In every species of fish I’ve angled for, it is the ones that have got away that thrill me the most, the ones that keep fresh in my memory. So I say it is good to lose fish. If we didn’t, much of the thrill of angling would be gone.
Ray Bergman
107.) Carpe Diem does not mean “Fish of the day.”
Unknown
How To Wish Someone Good Luck Fishing
108.) Much like folks in performance arts, some fishermen consider the expression “good luck” to bring bad luck. So, try some of the expressions below.
109.) Enjoy your fishing day.
110.) Here’s to a good haul!
111.) Fair winds!
112.) Have a good time fishing.
113.) Keep it reel!
114.) Bobbers down!
115.) Let’s go find some fish!
116.) It’s a great day for a great catch!
117.) Don’t catch ’em all!
118.) Tight lines.
Short Fishing Quotes
119.) Drop a line and stay a while.
120.) We’re eating good tonight!
121.) Cast away your troubles.
122.) Wishing I was fishing.
123.) Good things come to those who bait.
124.) Fishing days are the best days.
125.) Keeping it reel!
126.) What’s the catch?
127.) There is no such thing as too much fishing.
128.) Catch of the day!
129.) Please hold; I’m on the other line.
130.) Step aside, it’s fishing time.
131.) Hooked on Fishing!
132.) No work today for me… my arm is in a cast.
133.) We’re going to need a bigger boat!
134.) No need to scale back.
135.) It’s fish o’clock!
Best Fishing Proverbs
136.) The gods do not deduct from man’s allotted span the hours spent in fishing.
Babylonian Proverb
137.) There are people who fish and those who just disturb the water.
Chinese Proverb
138.) Like a fish, one should look for a hole in the net.
Samoan Proverb
139.) No one with a good catch of fish goes home by the back alley.
English Proverb
140.) Fish don’t get caught in deep water.
Vietnamese Proverb
141.) Make not the sauce till you have caught the fish.
English Proverb
142.) There is a time to fish and a time to dry the nets.
Chinese Proverb
143.) You cannot catch trout with dry breeches.
Spanish Proverb
144.) A big fish is caught with big bait.
Sierra Leonean Proverb
145.) The fish you cannot catch is always a big one.
Chinese Proverb
Great Fishing Insights
146.) If you cannot catch a fish, do not blame the sea.
Greek Proverb
147.) There’s always time for one more cast.
American Proverb
148.) Don’t bargain for fish that are still in the water.
Indian Proverb
149.) Happiness is a big fish and a witness.
American Proverb
The fish sees the bait, not the hook; a man sees not the danger — only the profit.
Mongolian Proverb
150.) Big fish are worthy of fishing even if you don’t catch one.
Finnish Proverb
By Mike O’Halloran
Mike is the founder and editor of Sports Feel Good Stories.
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