I could not be so impetuous to try to comment on such a personal and special thing. I choose to instead post the words of others that sum it up so eloquently.
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"If fishing is like religion, then fly-fishing is high church."
~by Tom Brokaw~
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"Some go to church and think about fishing, others go fishing and think about God."
~by Tony Blake~
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"In my family, there was no clear division between religion and fly fishing."
~by Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It, 1976~
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"Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise."
~by Norman Fitzroy Maclean, A River Runs Through It~
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"My wife wonders why all women do not seek anglers for husbands. She has come in contact with many in her life with me and she claims that they all have a sweetness in their nature which others lack."
~by Ray Bergman, author of Trout, and Just Fishing~
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"There is certainly something in angling that tends to produce a serenity of the mind."
~by Washington Irving~
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"In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman."
~by Norman Fitzroy Maclean, A River Runs Through It~
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"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, many pleasant recollections of all one has seen, heard and done."
~by Charles F. Orvis, 1886~
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"My biggest worry is that my wife (when I'm dead) will sell my fishing gear for what I said I paid for it."
~by Koos Brandt~
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"The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span the hours spent in fishing."
~Babylonian Proverb~
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"Our tradition is that of the first man who sneaked away to the creek when the tribe did not really need fish."
~by Roderick Haig-Brown, about modern fishing, A River Never Sleeps, 1946~
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"Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after."
~by Henry David Thoreau~
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How could I possibly best that