“You probably don’t even know the bluegill’s Latin name, which is Lepomis macrochrisus. I don’t care what its Latin name is either, but I quote it to shame those who can Latinize a whole batch of trout-stream flies but feel a bluegill is beneath their dignity.” -Charley Waterman
“Panfish Get No Respect”“It is now several more autumns that you have walked those mountain saddles and aspen whips and windswept plains without her. There have been other dogs and other hunters, and sometimes you have walked alone. But not too often because you find yourself looking for a white setter with black speckling to check back with you. She was right here, wasn’t she? And only a moment ago. When she does not return, you realize she is on point somewhere else. You just have not found her, yet.” -Tom Huggler
“Owned and Disowned by Hunting Dogs” Photo by: dogbreederinfo.com“As far a you are concerned, it makes no difference how many people have been attacked by bears; perhaps in one locality there may have been no record of any such attack. Yet keep in mind that you may establish the record.”
-Archibald Rutledge
Dangerous Beasts Photo: Dilliff“When blizzards and storm winds strike, other hunters curl up by the hearth. Waterfowlers go forth.” –Zack Taylor
Successful Waterfowling, 1974 Photo: artbarbarians.com“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” – Groucho Marx (1890-1977) Photo: English Rose“Give a man enough rope and it will still come out six inches too short. That is the nature of rope, if not the nature of man. In fact, the phrase ‘enough rope’ is deceptive, because there is no such thing as enough rope. Ask anyone who has tried to tie a canoe securely to the top of his car.” -Patrick F. McManus
“At Loose Ends” Photo: hiveharbringer“There is much confusion in the world today concerning creeks and cricks. Many otherwise well-informed people live out their lives under the impression that a crick is a creek mispronounced. Nothing could be farther from the truth. A crick is a distinctly separate entity from a creek, and it should be recognized as such. After all, a creek is merely a creek, but a crick is a crick.” -Patrick McManus
“How to Fish a Crick”“In my one-room schoolhouse a single teacher taught seven grades–and contrary to many of today’s schools, our teacher not only assumed each of the boys, and some of the girls, carried a knife, she counted on it.” -Gene Hill
“Pocketknives” Photo: pryderilUK“Of all the liars among mankind, the fisherman is most trustworthy.” -William Sherwood Fox
Silken Lines and Silver Hooks, 1954 Photo: Lsuff“Some day, out of sheer vindictiveness, I hope to venture out on the streams of Montana with a trout-fishing purist, catch a trout, hit its head on a rock, heave it up on the bank to rot, and snort something like ‘The slimy buggers are ruining perfectly good sucker habitat.'” -Greg Keeler
“Carp of a Parallel Universe” Photo: Dezidor“Some people ask why men go hunting. They must be the kind of people who seldom get far from highways. What do they know of the tryst a hunting man keeps with the wind and the trees and the sky? Hunting? The means are greater than the end, and every hunter knows it.” -Gordon MacQuarrie
Field & Stream, 1939 Photo: Glen Harper“An inexperienced shotgun user will check out a gun by lifting it to his shoulder and then putting his face against the stock and squirming around until he can look down the barrel or rib. A good shot will invariably pick out a target or imaginary target, push the gun muzzle at it, and then see just how the gun fits. He doesn’t thrust his head forward extremely far, but he endeavors to meet the gun stock with it.” -Charles F. Waterman
“Guns and Using Them”“There’s no such thing as too many good books or too many paintings and prints. Or bronzes of Labradors and pointers and Brittanies and setters. Or glasses with pintails and canvasbacks and salmon and trout flies. Or pictures of you and Charlie with old Duke and a limit of bobwhites, or a pair of muleys, or a half-dozen Canadas, or about a yard of rainbows. Or old decoys and duck calls. There are never too many memories of days past or too many dreams of good times to come.” -Gene Hill
A Listening Walk, 1985 Photo: Chris“There are no bad days in a duck blind.” –Charles F. Waterman
“Duck Blinds,” The Part I Remember, 1974 Photo: New Hampshire Game and Fish“I do not particularly care to shoot grouse out of trees but probably wouldn’t hesitate if I were hungry. Of course a truly practical soul might mention that it doesn’t make much difference to the grouse whether he is potted on a branch or bagged while splitting the wind through the hemlocks after being pointed stylishly by a setter with a pedigree written on parchment.” -Charley F. Waterman
“Sports and Killjoys”“Most of all, a great dog never stops teaching its owner. And if an owner is wise, he’ll never stop learning. A synchrony exists between an old dog and its owner, a synergy that builds with time spent together communicating in voice tones and body language. Birds might have first drawn us to the sport of wingshooting, but it’s likely that our dogs have kept us in brush pants and double guns.” -Chris Dorsey
“Exclamation Points” Photo: nugefishes“Remember, it’s not hunting, it’s the hunter. Men don’t hunt for sustenance anymore. We hunt for the anthropologists’ reason–as a piece of human ritual. I hunt for the pleasure of forests and fields, companionship, for what my son can learn about lives foreign to his own. I hunt to experience the moment of heightened acuity that modern life seems to dull. I hunt to experience the story.” -Walt Harrington
The Everlasting Stream, 2002 Photo: Family Frackiewicz“Nobody can fully understand the meaning of love unless he’s owned a dog. He can show you more affection with one flick of his tail than a man can gather through a lifetime of handshakes.” -Gene Hill
“The Dog Man” Photo: Renee V“For the hunter, fall is the island and the rest of the year is the swim.” -Charles Fergus
A Rough-Shooting Dog, 1991 Photo: blackburnphoto“3-pound rainbow trout, age 3, of Low-Water Bridge Hole, succumbed Saturday after mistaking a metal spinner for real food. Born in January of 1994 at the Reed Creek Hatchery in Pendleton County, Mrs. Rainbow was the daughter of the late Mr. And Mrs. Brood Trout. Surviving are thousands of siblings in such waters as Lost River, Thorn Creek and the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac. Mrs. Rainbow was best known for her ability to capture and ingest sculpin from between rocks at the bottom of the river. A memorial photograph of Mrs. Rainbow will be placed on the wall of the angler who caught her.” -Mike Sawyers
“3-Pound Rainbow: An Obituary” Photo: Bugeaters“If there is anything in life in which I take a pardonable pride, it is my friendship for certain old woodsmen and hunters; obscure men, as far as the world is concerned, but faithful friends, loyal comrades.” -Archibald Rutledge
“Starlight through the storm”
Life’s Extras, 1928“Poets talk about ‘spots of time,’ but it is really the fishermen who experience eternity compressed into a moment. No one can tell what a spot of time is until suddenly the whole world is a fish and the fish is gone. I shall remember that son of a bitch forever.”
-Norman Maclean
A River Runs Through It, 1976 Photo: Paul Iddon“When I get up at five in the morning to go fishing, I wake my wife up and ask, ‘What’ll it be dear, sex or fishing?’ And she says, “Don’t forget your waders.'” -Robert Ruark
The Old Man and the Boy, 1953 Photo: Denis Collette “‘Boy,’ the old man said, ‘I will tell you a very wise thing. If a man is really intelligent, there’s practically nothing a good dog can’t teach him. But a dumb man can’t learn anything from a smart dog, while a dumb dog can occasionally learn something from a smart man. Remember that.'” -Robert Ruark
The Old Man and the Boy, 1953 Photo: kimbospacenut“He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survived.” -Jack London
The Call of the Wild, 1903 Photo: Todd Ryburn“Some taxidermists simply have no idea what certain animals look like, and others create corny or tasteless poses. I think the snarls of lions or bears are greatly overdone myself, but what gives me the vapors is what I call the ‘punch drunk bear.’ One taxidermist produced dozens of life-size mounts of brown and polar bears standing with their front paws down with dazed looks on their faces. They remind me of prize fighters who have been clipped a good one right on the button and are about to fall on their faces for the count.” -Jack O’Connor
“Trophy Collecting and Trophy Rooms” Photo: Sharon Mollerus“Hunters these days ultimately hunt memories as much as meat to put on the table. Memories feed dreams, and hunters must have dreams to keep them motivated. When you lose your dreams, you lose your mind.” -James Swan
In Defense of Hunting, 1994 Photo: Jcherski“A dog does not live as long as a man and this natural law is the fount of many tears. If boy and puppy might grow to manhood and doghood together, and together grow old, and so in due course die, full many a heartache might be avoided. But the world is not so ordered, and dogs will die and men will weep for them so long as there are dogs and men.” -Ben Ames Williams
Old Tantrybogus, 1920 Photo: blogdnd Click here for the Greatest Outdoor Quotes You’ve Never Heard Before. For outrageous celebrity quotes click on They Said What?
OL’s best outdoor quotes: “He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survived.” — Jack London.
