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.

- Westwood, 1886

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.

- William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II Scene 1 Line 2

Around the steel no tortur'd worm shall twine, No blood of living insect stain my line; Let me, less cruel, cast the feather'd hook, With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook, Silent along the mazy margin stray, And with the fur-wrought fly delude the prey.

- John Gay, Rural Sports, 1720

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

The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.

- John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir

But, remember the back cast is the foundation, and that unless it is solid the superstructure will be rickety. Remember also that the motion of the rod through the air should be almost, or quite noiseless. Nothing offends the angler's ear more than the "swish" of a fly-rod. It is like a false note to an educated musical ear. It indicates a degree of force about as appropriate to the end in view, as a burglar's jimmy to opening a watch. This should never be, except possibly when casting directly against the wind or for distance only.

- Henry P. Wells, "Fly-Rods and Fly-Tackle", 1885

For the supreme test of a fisherman is not how many fish he has caught, not even how he has caught them, but what he has caught when he has caught no fish.

- John H. Bradley "Farewell Thou Busy World" - 1935

When you fish with a flie, if it be possible, let no part of your line touch the water, but your flie only.

- Isaak Walton, 1496

Oh, the brave fisher's life, It is the best of any, 'T is full of pleasure, void of strife, And 't is beloved of many: Other Joyes, Are but toyes, Only this Lawful is, For our skil Breeds no ill, But content and pleasure.

- Isaak Walton, 1496

When the beginner can cast his fly into his hat, eight times out of ten, at forty feet, he is a fly fisher; and so far as casting is concerned, a good one.

- James A. Henshall, MD, 1881

O, sir, doubt not that Angling is an art; is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly?

- Isaak Walton, 1496

Enjoy thy stream oh, harmless fish, And when an angler for his dish, Through gluttony's vile sin, Attempts--a wretch--to pull thee out God give thee strength, oh, gentle trout, To pull the rascal in.

- Peter Pindar

April 1st, 1878 - Opening day. Fished Halfway brook from Morgan brook to, and through the woods; then fished Ogden brook from Van Husen's road to Gleason's. Banks more than full of roily snow water; weather decidedly cold; strong wind from the Northwest; cloudy sky. Caught one small trout that I returned to his native element to grow; discovered from my single specimen of the Salvelinus fontinalis that they have the same bright spots that they have always had; look the same, smell the same, feel the same; other peculiarities lacking. Warm sun and rain required to develop the characteristics we so much admire in our leaping friend. Managed to fall into the Ogden brook - in fact went in without the slightest difficulty, amid applause from the bank; discovered from my involuntary plunge that the water is just as wet as last year, and if memory serves, a trifle colder. Reached home in the evening, cold, wet, tired and hungry. Nevertheless, had a mostglorious time.

- A. Nelson Cheney, 1878

10 Commandments of Fishing

1) Thou shalt have no sports before me.  Water skiing is most profane, but lo, the man who trolleth with cow bells.

2) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.  Pity the sinner who bows to the false idols of spinner flies, bubble floats, those damneth fly/spin combos, but most evil of all the Popeil Pocketeth Fisherman.

3) Thou shalt not take the name of Izaak Walton in vain.

4) Remember the Sabbath day and keep it wholly (for angling).  On this day you must take up the bamboo staff and make great pilgrimages.  Do not look back, though if thou dearly care to be an angler above all else, do not despair the shriven tongue.  (Translation - listen to a hell-fire sermon on the radio as you chariot to the wilds.)

5) Honor thy rod and thy reel.

6) Thou shalt not kill.  Catcheth and release is the key to the gates of the eternal fishery.

7) Thou shalt not commit adultery.  Guilt and punishment shall rain unto the man who consorts the tempting bait with his stiffeth rod.

8) Thou shalt not steal.  The man who wadeth into another man's run shall bring a curse upon his name for generation after generation.  Behold the order Izaak, long toothed in vengeance.

9) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.  Lay silent and still tongued before the multitudes and cubits of fish claimed by thy neighbor.  Justly, the fish that floppeth from your own hook may also groweth as the word is spread.

10) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's buxom fishing partnereth, dritetch boat, signature series Pezon Caneth rod, water tigheth, felt soleth waders, etceteraeth.

Let he who is without sin among you cast the first No. 2/0 bucktail into the wind.

    - From The Fly Fisherman's Decalogue by Don Roberts, July-August 1978 Flyfishing the West

Some fishermen think that any rod they buy and pay for should stand any form of abuse, and if it does not, the rod-maker is blamed and his work decried. The makers know this, and that their reputation for skilled and honest work is as sensitive as that of a woman. ......To such of my readers as wish to buy and do not care to make, I would say that the maker who has a reputation, will do his best to maintain it. If he once turned out good work, competition will force him to do so still. If he has the skill, you may be sure he will use it. No one knows better than he that one bad rod will do him more harm than a hundred first class in every respect will benefit him.....

- Henry P. Wells, "Fly Rods and Fly Tackle" - 1885

It is only the inexperienced and thoughtless who find pleasure in killing fish for the mere sake of killing them. No sportsman does this.

- W.C. Prime, 1888

An angler, sir, uses the finest tackle, and catches his fish scientifically - trout for instance - with the artificial fly, and he is mostly a quiet, well behaved gentlemen. A fisherman, sir, uses any kind of 'ooks and lines, and catches them any way; so he gets them it's all one to 'im, and he is generally a noisy fellah, sir, something like a gunner.

- Dr. George Washington Bethune, 1847

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!

- Thomas Doubleday, 1818

All the charm of the angler's life would be lost but for these hours of thought and memory. All along the brook, all day on lake or river, while he takes his sport, he thinks. All the long evenings in camp, or cottage, or inn, he tells stories of his own life, hears stories of his friend's lives, and if alone calls up the magic of memory.

- W.C. Prime, 1888

O, sir, doubt not that Angling is an art; is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly?

- Isaak Walton, 1496

Enjoy thy stream oh, harmless fish, And when an angler for his dish, Through gluttony's vile sin, Attempts--a wretch--to pull thee out God give thee strength, oh, gentle trout, To pull the rascal in.

- Peter Pindar

April 1st, 1878 - Opening day. Fished Halfway brook from Morgan brook to, and through the woods; then fished Ogden brook from Van Husen's road to Gleason's. Banks more than full of roily snow water; weather decidedly cold; strong wind from the Northwest; cloudy sky. Caught one small trout that I returned to his native element to grow; discovered from my single specimen of the Salvelinus fontinalis that they have the same bright spots that they have always had; look the same, smell the same, feel the same; other peculiarities lacking. Warm sun and rain required to develop the characteristics we so much admire in our leaping friend. Managed to fall into the Ogden brook - in fact went in without the slightest difficulty, amid applause from the bank; discovered from my involuntary plunge that the water is just as wet as last year, and if memory serves, a trifle colder. Reached home in the evening, cold, wet, tired and hungry. Nevertheless, had a mostglorious time.

- A. Nelson Cheney, 1878

In chapter seven of his delightful and beautifully written book, My Moby Dick, writer William Humphrey scourges current angling literature.

“If you were to compete with the crowds now on the streams in quest of trout you needed to be a physicist, an entomologist, a limnologist, a statistician, a biometrician.  The angler had metamorphosed into the ichthyologist, and the prevailing prose reflected the change – if mud can be said to reflect.”

I love – any verb less freighted with emotion would be inadequate – Humphrey’s writing. I’ve read his other books.  I would give all my graphites if I could write one-fourth as well.  But I disagree with him when he takes today’s angling writers to task.  After all, if a man is led by his sport to thirtst for knowledge of entomology, that is his affair, and he is the better for it.  Indeed, the whole world stands to gain if the angler’s curiosity recruits him to defend the natural environment.

Why condemn a sportsman because he comes to find more – or at least equal – pleasure in seining a stream for nymphs than in nymphing for trout?  I haven’t arrived there yet, though I do keep a copy of Lisinger’s Aquatic Insects of California on my bookshelf.  But I can understand, even empathize with the man in his affliction, because when I was a boy I had just about as much fun hunting nightcrawlser with a flashlight as I did dabbling those worms for trout.  It was a skill, knowing how to set on the worm before it darted underground, and how to play the worm applying steady, measured pressure until the worm itred and came to the bait can.  And I learned a lot about the habits and ecological importance of the worm. 

But Humphrey falls short in his scorn.  What he fails to mention is that today’s angler must also be an etymologist (no, I didn’t misspell the word for bug studier; an etymologist is a word studier).  What brings this to mind is my past struggle with the long family name for the little bitty midge, Chironomidae.

I never at first paid much more attention to that word than I would to a non-biting gnat.  I just pronounced it as if  it were written, “cheer on, oh mid,” with the accent falling on the second syllable.  But I became a little uneasy when I realized that about half my fellow anglers pronounced it like “cur-on-oh-mid.”

After awhile my scarred-over inferiority complex commenced to smart and itch so badly that I looked the word up in the twelve volume, etymology oriented Century Dictionary and found that we were all wrong: it is pronounced ki-ro-nom I-de (say cairo-nom-id-day with the accent on the nom) and it’s a Greek word for somebody who moves his hands a lot when he talks.

And so it is that the cult of fly angling leads the worshipper down strange and wonderful paths; and there is no use resisting or being peevish about it like Mr. Humphrey; just let yourself go.

Next summer isn’t far away.  There will be garden parties.  Fly anglers will have been momentarily dragged away from their streams and lakes and will be in attendance, dressed in seersuckers, or in white trousers and blue blazers.  They will be in their best, Henry James garden party conversation form.

It is late afternoon and the garden party is in full flow.  Guests wander in the manicured garden, a flux, forming and reforming into small groups.  The beautiful woman and the distinguished angler have met by chance, alone in a garden niche, slightly apart.  Introductions are exchanged and conversation follows easily and richly against the muted background of music and clinking glasses. 

A tiny gnat buzzes around.  The angler contemplates the bug while jiggling the ice in his cocktail glass, and she is already half dazzled by the brilliant and witty conversation of the tanned, handsome stranger, and the angler says, “Ah, the Cairo-nom-id-day hatch.”

A slender hand caresses his upper arm; a lovely bare shoulder presses his chest. “You’re wonderful,” she sighs.  “How do you know all these marvelous things?"

Cult of Angling

By: Ben Shuey

November-December 1979

Flyfishing the West

For the supreme test of a fisherman is not how many fish he has caught, not even how he has caught them, but what he has caught when he has caught no fish.

- John H. Bradley "Farewell Thou Busy World" - 1935

When you fish with a flie, if it be possible, let no part of your line touch the water, but your flie only.

- Isaak Walton, 1496

Oh, the brave fisher's life, It is the best of any, 'T is full of pleasure, void of strife, And 't is beloved of many: Other Joyes, Are but toyes, Only this Lawful is, For our skil Breeds no ill, But content and pleasure.

- Isaak Walton, 1496

When the beginner can cast his fly into his hat, eight times out of ten, at forty feet, he is a fly fisher; and so far as casting is concerned, a good one.

- James A. Henshall, MD, 1881

But, remember the back cast is the foundation, and that unless it is solid the superstructure will be rickety. Remember also that the motion of the rod through the air should be almost, or quite noiseless. Nothing offends the angler's ear more than the "swish" of a fly-rod. It is like a false note to an educated musical ear. It indicates a degree of force about as appropriate to the end in view, as a burglar's jimmy to opening a watch. This should never be, except possibly when casting directly against the wind or for distance only.

- Henry P. Wells, "Fly-Rods and Fly-Tackle", 1885