Fisherman's Vade Mecum

"For me, becoming a fly fisherman has been a mater of adding layers, not passing through stages. I began with bluegills and largemouth bass, and I pursue them still."

William Tapply "A Fly Fishing Life"

From Hewitt’s Nymph Fly Fishing

It must be remembered that there are two distinct methods of attracting trout to a fly. One is to imitate the natural food of the trout by the artificial fly and its behavior; and the other is to make the fly move in a way entirely abnormal for a live insect and thus get the trout’s attention. Spinners, bucktails and whirling minnows are illustrations of this latter method of fishing. The really expert fly fisherman desires to take his quarry by fooling him with the imitation he offers and is not satisfied if he gets his trout in any other way. This is perhaps the reason why real sportsmen look down on methods of fishing which are at variance with their ides of the proper way trout fishing should be done. If this is so, then nymph fishing ought to have a very high place in the estimation of the true sportsman.

Even when trout take the nymph it is difficult to time the strike so as to hook him, as most of the time the nymph is invisible and one must acquire that sixth sense which the experienced fisherman gets after years of practice of when to tighten the line.

Stream nymphs in our streams mostly remain on the stones, or under them, during the day, and are very likely to swim about towards evening or in the dark. This is one of the reasons why trout feed toward evening, when their natural food becomes easily available.

Often in the early season we have the experience of seeing trout rising all around and not being able to make them take a dry fly. Such conditions used to get me quite exasperated, and I wondered what could be the matter. Observation finally solved the riddle and made the method of fishing to be employed on these occasions perfectly plain. When trout are feeding on the surface and will not take any kind of dry fly, they are always feeding on midge larvae and midges. The larvae are rising from the bottom, and the midges are on the surface. Midge larvae are much larger than the midges we see in the air developed from them and are in the form of little worms, often red in color, but other forms are brown or black.

The second method of midge fly-fishing is operating the fly to make it behave like the midge larvae coming up from the bottom. Such flies must be even more sparingly tied and, in fact, resemble more a little worm. Such flies are either fished by letting them sink a little and then drawing them slowly so as to make them come to the surface like the natural larvae, or are cast and drawn slowly under the surface, allowing them to stop from time to time. These larvae flies will catch more fish than the surface midges by far, but you do not see the trout take them so well.

There is one absolutely sure sign when midge fly-fishing must be done, and that is when you see a trout strike at the knot in the leader instead of the fly. Knots are about the same size as the smaller midges.  If ever you see this happen, just put on a midge and have some real fun for awhile.

"No misanthropist, I must nevertheless confess that I like and frequently must fish alone. Of course in a sense all dedicated fishermen must fish alone;..."

Robert Traver "Trout Madness"

"During my addled career as a trout fisherman I have gone on a lot of wild-goose chases, and I ruefully expect to go on a lot more before I hang up my waders."

Robert Traver "Trout Madness"

"There is not the slightest doubt, of course, that the fishing is better on some days than it is on others, and that frequently certain parts of the day are better than others. All fishermen know that. My thesis is that I do not believe anyone can predict those times - at least for any appreciable period in advance -."

Robert Traver "Trout Madness"

"Improved fly lines, better hooks, the use of portable floatation devices such as float tubes - all are factors which have aided the development of warm-water angling."

Stewart & Allen "Flies for Bass and Panfish"

"Certainly fishing in traditional ways excuses no one for failing to catch big trout; anyone who fishes long enough should get at least a few."

John McDonald in "The Armchair Fisherman"

"The fish and I were both stunned and disbelieving to find ourselves connected by a line."

William Humphrey in "The Armchair Angler"

"The only reason I ever played golf in the first place was so that I could afford to hunt and fish."

Sam Snead

"As I mentioned before, if there's a little chop on the water your chances of spotting fish are greatly decreased, but there's an advantage to this situation: a little bit of riffle will cover your cast better and allow you to get away with being a little closer and using a heavier tippet and larger fly."

John Gierach "Fly Fishing the High Country"

"The desire for fishing is like some diseases, in attacking a man with great severity without notice. It can be no more resisted than falling in love can be resisited, and, like love, the best treatment it its gratification."

Charles Bradford "The Armchair Angler"

"Aren't I always a couple of days late, a week early?"

Nick Lyons "Confessions of a "Fly fishing Addict"

"Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant?? I'm half way through my FISH burger and I realize, Oh my God . . . I could be eating a slow learner."

Lyndon B. Johnson

"Even if you've been fishing for three hours and haven't caught anything except poison ivy and sunburn, you're still better off than the worm."

Unknown

"From all of this it should be clear that wading is a tactic that comes into play only after much fishing has been done, if at all."

Gerald Almy "Tying & Fishing Terrestrials"

"The fact is that few fisherman has the patience to wade as quietly and as stealthily as desired."

Gerald Almy "Tying & Fishing Terrestrials"

"Few elements of this whole we call nature bring us into more intimate contact with its beauty, with our wonder, than the creatures we call trout, or the activity we call angling. To see the glow, to smell the wood, to hear the water - to feel the heft of a good fish - is to be alive."

Steven J Meyers "The Nature of Fly Fishing"

" 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

"Fly fishing is a complex pastime, full of variety in its participants, in its accoutrements and the range of fish that are sought."

Steven J Meyers "The Nature of Fly Fishing"

"Fish die belly upward and rise to the surface. It's their way of falling."

Andre Gide

"Fishing, with me, has always been an excuse to drink in the daytime."

Jimmy Cannon

"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 "A Fly-Fishing Life"

"Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish."

Mark Twain

"I've willingly confronted what, to others, might seem like intolerable discomfort and even danger for the chance to catch a fish, and I've been skunked more than my share of times. But my time on the water has never been wasted."

William Tapply "A Fly-Fishing Life"

"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 "Fly Fishing the High Country"

To catch the fish you must be the fish. But, if you are also what you eat, you must also surly be the fly. What if you try to eat yourself then you become you all over again. Oh the insanity of becoming a fly fisherman. The peace is in doing and not thinking so much.

By: Justin W. Felter

"There is no more graceful and healthful accomplishment for a lady than fly-fishing, and there is no reason why a lady should not in every respect, rival a gentleman in the gentle art."

W.C. Prime, 1888

"The fisherman has a harmless, preoccupied look; he is a kind of vagrant, that nothing fears. He blends himself with the trees and the shadows. All his approaches are gentle and indirect. He times himself to the meandering, soliloquizing stream; he addresses himself to it as a lover to his mistress; he woos it and stays with it till he knows its hidden secrets. Where it deepens his purpose deepens; where it is shallow he is indifferent. He knows how to interpret its every glance and dimple; its beauty haunts him for days."

John Burroughs, 1886

The one great ingredient in successful fly-fishing is patience. The man whose fly is always on the water has the best chance. There is always a chance of a fish or two, no matter how hopeless it looks. You never know what may happen in fly-fishing.

Francis Francis, 1862

"There is a lot of amiable fantasy written about trout fishing, but the truth is that few men know much if anything about the habits of trout and little more about the manner of taking them."

Robert Traver "Trout Madness"

"Alfred W. Miller, known to all as Sparse Grey Hackle, and known for the fine H.L. Leonard and Garrison split bamboo fly rods he fished, was not a fan of modern fly rod technology. Sparse, one fellow member joked recently at the Angler's Club, when are you going to fish fiberglass? The old man took a thoughtful swallow of straight Laphroaig, a special pot-still whiskey so strong it numbs the tongue. I'll fish fiberglass, Sparse muttered behind his steel rimmed spectacles, the morning after some concertmaster plays a concerto at Carnegie Hall on a plastic violin!"

- Ernest G. Schwiebert, "Trout" - 1975

"The true trout fisherman is like a drug addict; he dwells in a tight little dream world all his own, and the men about him, whom he observes obliviously spending their days pursing money and power, genuinely puzzle him, as he doubtless does them."

Robert Traver "Trout Madness"

"Last Sunday I fished up a certain river most of the day and through my supernal skill and encyclopedic knowledge of angling was able to take a dozen brook trout.  If I had kept them I would have had the makings of a nice can of sardines."
Sparse Grey Hackle

... if you want a river full of fish, it won't help to advertise it; it won't help to kill everything you catch; it won't help to work for the fish-killing industry;' it won't help to curse and drink and lament. So I cut down on my killing; I tied more flies on barbless hooks; I built more fly- and fewer bait-rods; I told tales more than I gave tips; and I found myself loving rivers and fish and fishing more than ever before."
David James Duncan in "The Armchair Angler"

"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 in "The Armchair Angler"

" Fish are, of course, indispensable to the angler.  They give him an excuse for fishing and justify the fly rod without which he would be a mere vagrant.  But the average fisherman's average catch doesn't even begin to justify, as fish, its cost in work, time, and money.  The true worth of fishing, as the experienced, sophisticated angler comes to realize, lies in the memorable contacts with people and other living creatures, scenes and places, and living waters great and small which it
provides. "
Sparse Grey Hackle (Alfred Waterbury Miller)

"There comes a time in a day's trout fishing when, standing in the ever-pushing water, you become aware of how tired you are.  The dull ache at the back of your neck, your belt leaning heavy on your hip bones, toes cold and numb in the end of your brogues, fingers cramped, and eyes tired.  Climb out, with your legs and feet as weighted as in a nightmare escape, and walk into the woods until the sound of the stream becomes background.  There you will find a round carpet of pine needles, deep and sun-warmed, and a good broad trunk to ease between your shoulder blades.  Now tobacco smoke pulled deep into your lungs, warmth coming through on your stretched-out calves, and quiet.  If you wait long enough the quiet will pass and all the woods noises, stilled by your lumbering passage, will begin again. A chickadee will surely come close and stand upside down on a twig for you, and you will hear delicate foot rustlings like the fast sliver of a needle through dark cloth with the pause for slow-drawn thread. "
Sparse Grey Hackle

How like fish we are: ready, nay eager, to seize upon whatever new thing some wind of circumstance shakes down upon the river of time! And how we rue our haste, finding the gilded morsel to contain a hook. Even so, I think there is some virtue in eagerness, whether its object proves true or false. How utterly dull would be a wholly prudent man, or trout, or world! Did I say a while ago that I waited "for prudence" sake? That was not so. The only prudence in fishermen is that designed to set the stage for taking another and perhaps a longer chance.
Aldo Leopold--"A Sand County Almanac"

"Hard-hitting flashing fellows these, bred and reared in no protected pond, but in the cold crystal mountain waters. Any angler who has matched his skill with one of Nature's trout and then with the pampered stall-fed darlings of the intensively stocked preserve, need not be told the difference between the two."
Joe Godfrey, Jr.

"Handling a big trout in swift water  is akin to flying a kite on a blustery day.  The more line you let out, the more trouble you're going to have getting it back."
JIMMY  D MOORE January 3, 2005

"May your thoughts be always peaceful, and your heart filled with gratitude to Him who made the country and the rivers: and 'may the east wind never blow when you go a-fishing!' "
Thaddeus Norris   "The Armchair Angler"

"Most fisherman, including this one, cling to their pet stupidities as  the would to a battered briar or an old jacket; and their dogged persistence in wrong methods and general wrong-headedness finally wins the a sort of grudging admiration, if not many fish."
Robert Traver   "The Armchair Angler"

"Fly fishing is a skillful art, on where man can pit his wits against natured, and at the same time, be at one with the world around him"
Martin Ford  "Fishing Flies"

"By the time I had turned thirty, I'd realized two important things. One, I had to fish. Two, I had to work for a living."
 Mallory Burton

"Each fishing expedition is different, offering a continual learning opportunity."
Marin Ford    "Fishing Flies"

"This rod need not necessarily be an expensive one, as a number of American rodbuilders have at last developed a class of rods for as low a price as ten dollars that have surprisingly good action. Without belittling or discouraging those who of necessity must confine themselves to moderate priced tackle, it goes without saying that the greatest enjoyment is derived from the use of the very finest equipment produced by master craftsmen. What the Stradivarius is to the artist of the violin, the finer rods are to the expert fly caster."
"Fishing the Dry Fly" by Arthur J Neu (1933) in FIshing Lake and Stream

"...buying a fly rod in the average city store, that is, joining it up and safely waggling it a bit, is much like seeing a woman's arm protruding from a car window: all one can readily be sure of is that the window is open."
 Anatomy of a Fisherman by Robert Traver (1964- McGraw-Hill)

"My favorite rod for fishing with micros is the 7.5 - foot, 2.5 ounce Paul Young Perfectionaist calibered for a 4-weight line. There are other bamboos just as suitable, but what I want is a rod with a slow casting cycle, so I can 'paint' the fly on target. The current preoccupation with speed-of-recovery in space age materials, boron and graphite, is in one sense misleading: it's fabulous when you need to get a fly out fast in front of a cruising tarpon, or bang a Polar Shrimp at a far-off steelhead, but when trout are rising in pockets of silky water between weed sweepers, the last thing I want in a rod is speed. Teacup accuracy with a controlled turnover at distances up to 40 feet is much more realistic."
"McClane's Angling World"

"Because of its historical ties to British sporting tradition, fly fishing in the 1800s was associated with cold-water fisheries for trout and salon, and flies tied specifically for bass and panfish were scarce, as were angler who fished with them."
Dick Stewart & Farrow Allen "Flies for Bass and Panfish"

I doubt not, that the use of the fly among the mountains, or wherever the trout are found, is nearly as old as the first knowledge that trout were delicate eating.

Rev. George W. Bethune, notes to The Complete Angler

We, in conclave assembled, out of a firm and abiding conviction that fly fishing as a way of angling gives its followers the finest form of outdoor recreation and natural understanding, do hereby join in common effort in order to maintain and further fly fishing as a sport, and, through it, to promote and conserve angling resources, inspire angling literature, advance the brotherhood of angling and broaden the understanding of all anglers in the spirit of true sportsmanship.

Preamble to the Constitution of the Federation of Fly Fishers

John Harder (of Orvis) tells me that though Orvis gets frequent requests for hackle necks with size 20 to 28 hackles on them, the company receives so few orders for hooks in those sizes that it’s hardly worth keeping them in stock. His opinion is that precious few people actually get around to tying up many size 24s compared to the attention those small flies get in the magazines.

Paul Schullery, American Fly Fishing

To aim flies at humans is to make fly-tying an art, or least a clever craft. I have no philosophical objection to this. Certainly trout flies are decorative, and Salmon Flies more so. To make a fly well requires skill.  With all these attributes, it is inevitable that flies should be tied for reasons other than fishing.

Datus Proper, What the Trout Said

This makes me think of what goes on in a salmon’s head when he, for example, streaks with violent surface wake after a gorgeous number 3/0 Jock Scott swinging past him in the current. Does he fail to take at the last second because he suddenly perceives that the Toucan veiling on the fly’s body isn’t applied exactly as it should have been, or that the Blue Chatterer cheeks are only blue Kingfisher?

Joe Bates, Atlantic Salmon Flies and Fishing

Why does a salmon rise? Why does a small boy cross the street just to kick a tin can?

Lee Wulff, The Atlantic Salmon

In casting, attitude may not be everything, but it is a great deal. And what a multitude of attitudes anglers assume! Some stand erect as pillars, swaying neither to the right nor to the left, whatever reach of line they covet. Some sway to and fro, with every movement of their rod, like a tall pine in a tempest. Others throw themselves forward as if ambitious to follow their fly in person; while now and then one casts with an ease and grace of attitude and movement which would excite the envy and admiration of an athlete or a sculptor.

George Dawson, Pleasures of Angling

It is not easy to tell one how to cast. The art must be acquired by practice.

Charles Orvis, Fishing with the Fly

Fly fishing has been designated the royal and aristocratic branch of the angler’s craft, and unquestionably it is the most difficult, the most elegant, and to men of taste, by myriads of degrees the most exciting and pleasant mode of angling.

William Trotter Porter

The issue of imitation has always occupied fly fishers, and part of its endless attraction has been the imponderable uncertainty of how much it matters to the fish in the first place.

Paul Schullery, American Fly Fishing

It is just as well to remember that angling is only a recreation, not a profession. We usually find that men of the greatest experience are most liberal and most dogmatic … It is often the man of limited experience who is most confident.

A visit to a first-class fishing-tackle shop is more interesting than an afternoon at the circus.

One can never learn all that there is in fly-fishing. Only men of limited experience think that they know it all.

It is the constant—or inconstant—change, the infinite variety in fly-fishing that binds us fast. It is impossible to grow weary of a sport that is never the same on any two days in the year. I am fond of all sorts of fishing, in fresh or salt water, in the interior of the country, or on the coast, but trout angling takes a grip upon the imagination. It is more of a mental recreation than other methods. There is always something in questions, something to discuss.

But should it be an off day, when the fish are glued to the bottom of the stream, how hard we work to tempt them! We feel a certain animosity against the trout. “Confound them! They must rise at something.” Fortunately our mood is easily sweetened and a little success goes a long way. If it was always easy to take trout, surely we would not be so found of fly-fishing.

In all fly-fishing, the wet and the dry, we are constantly learning something, and this we fancy is the secret of the infinite charm which the sport possesses. If the trout will not take your dry fly, try a wet fly, or wet the dry one. If they fail to appreciate the wet dry fly, skim or bob your dropper fly. Try every known method, but always stick to the artificial fly.

Louis Rhead

One half the most skillful fishermen assert that the fly, as for instance, the scarlet ibis, need resemble nothing on earth, or in the waters under the earth, and that the sharp-sighted fish are never deceived by thinking ours the natural insect, but take him for some new and undescribed species. As for myself, to use the quaint language of the editor of the “Knickerbocker,” “sometimes I think so, and then again I don’t, but mostly I do.”

Robert Barnwell Roosevelt in Game Fish of the North

The reader may be aware that anglers differ widely in their theories respecting the choice of flies, some contending that the nicest possible imitations should be made of the fly on the water, or rather that on which the trout is feeding at the time; others hodlign directly the reverse, and asserting that no imitation deserving the name can be made, and that when the natural fly is abundant the fish will reject any resemblance of it which may be thrown to him … It also seems to be established that salmon do not take flies from being deceived by their resemblance to the natural, in some places the most gaudy colors being in repute, in others, as in Wales, those of sober brownish hues. So also as to the adaptation of colors to the time of day, the color of the water, &c., one successful angler will lay down to you a set of rules, another, equally successful, directly the reverse. In fact, almost every practiced fly-fisher has a creed and system of his own, though the advocates of exact imitations speak with artistic contempt of all who differ from the; and are in their turn ridiculed as pedantic pretenders, or mad with too much learning. The truth, as in most vexed questions, lies between the two extremes. If nature be violently contradicted, the trout are too keen-sighted not to detect the clumsy trick, and the success of certain flies at certain seasons, and not at others, proves that the fish have some rule in feeding.

Rev. George W. Bethune, notes to The Complete Angler

A true and tired rod of graceful proportions and known excellence, which has been the faithful companion on many a jaunt by mountain stream, brawling river, or quiet lake, and has taken its part, and shared the victory in many a struggle with the game beauties of the waters, at last comes to be looked upon as a tried and trusty friend, in which the angler reposes the utmost confidence and reliance, and which he regards with a  love and affection that he bestows upon no other inanimate object.

James Henshall, The Book of the Black Bass (1881)

Happy must that man be, the thread of whose life is a “silken line;” and who finds nothing more crooked in existence than the hook upon which he wreathes his fly.

Unknown Writer in the Spirit, 1837.

I took a walk after dinner. It’s astonishing the number of bass I saw playing in the current. They often catch three dozen in the course of half an hour with a fly. I think they are the finest fish I have tasted in America.

Robert Hunter, Jr. (1785)

A lot of people feel the same way today, and many of them would be amused to know that the second reliable reference to fly fishing in the New World was not for trout but for bass.

Paul Schullery, American Fly Fishing

And what sport doth yeeld a more pleasing content, and less hurt and change than angling with a hooke?

Captain John Smith

I like to fish because it is totally relaxing. I love the water. I can concentrate and forget all my worries. I count my blessings while fishing.
--George Bush

As President, I was able to save with the stroke of the pen a hundred million acres of wilderness area in Alaska. This is the kid of thing that is is gratifying to a President, but to be on a solitary stream with good friends, with a fly rod in your hand, and to have a successfully or even an unsuccessful day--they're all successful--is an even greater delight.
--Jimmy Carter

Fishing is great discipline in the equality of men -- because all men are equal before fish!
--Herbert Hoover
 

In these sad and ominous days of mad fortune-chasing, every patriotic, thoughtful citizen, whenter he fishes or not, should lment that we have not among our countrymen more fishermen.
--Grover Cleveland

The traveler fancies he has seen the country. So he has, the outside of it at least; but the angler only sees the inside. The angler only is brought close, face to face with the flower and bird and insect life of the rich riverbanks, the only part of the landscape where the hand of man has never interfered.
~ Charles Kingsley