Author: Don Paglia

Tip #65: “Fly-fishing is a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing, I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.”                           Attributed to Samuel Johnson (a/k/a Dr. Johnson) (“The Great Cham of Literature”), While television, movies and novels all provide […]

Tip #64: “The man who coined the phrase ‘Money can’t buy happiness,’ never bought himself a good fly rod!”                                                                 Reginald Baird, from his video Labrador Trout Most of us have limiting thoughts and ideas. These thoughts we tell ourselves and tell others are the ones that keep us in the exact “reality” we have […]

Tip #63: “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 ‘hooks and lines, and catches them anyway; so he gets them it’s all one to him, and […]

Tip #62: “Fly-fishing may well be considered the most beautiful of all rural sports.”                                                                                 Frank Forester, 1895 John, a hugely successful businessman in his late fifties, who has amassed millions of dollars, when asked what it takes for him to be happy, replied that “in order to be happy my day has to […]

Tip #61: “Unless one can enjoy himself fishing with the fly, even when his efforts are unrewarded, he loses much real pleasure. More than half the intense enjoyment of fly-fishing is derived from the beautiful surroundings, the satisfaction felt from being in the open air, the new lease of life secured thereby, and the many, […]

Tip #60: “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, Fisherman’s Spring, 1951 While I rarely buy lotto tickets, the folks who sell them are correct to say “you can’t win if […]

Tip #59: “Even a fish wouldn’t get into trouble if he kept his mouth shut.”  Author Unknown This reminds me of a story… Well, maybe I better not, after all, talk is cheap and sometimes it gets us into trouble. If you want preaching go to church or synagogue or mosque. If you want a […]

Tip #58: “Bass fishermen watch Monday night football, drink beer, drive pickup trucks and prefer noisy women with big breasts. Trout fishermen watch McNeil-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 […]

Tip #57: “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 F. McManus We all have ideas of what it means to be a success. Some have it totally backwards; upside down. Quote the old adage “do what you […]

Tip #56: “The gods do not deduct from man’s allotted span the hours spent in fishing.”                                                                                          Babylonian Proverb Time never stops for any reason. However, when one is doing what one loves to do it’s as though time vanishes. We’ll say in amazement, “I don’t know where the time went!” Conversely, when one is […]