I have been reading and listening to a lot of John Gierach lately. John, unfortunately, passed away last year after a long career as a fly fishing writer. The fly fishing world will forever grieve the loss of John, but we are fortunate to have 23 of the best fly fishing books ever written, full of short stories from his life as an angler. He was so good at portraying what goes on in a fly fisher’s mind in a witty, humbling, and insightful way.
His most recent book, “All the Time In The World,” was published in 2023, and like all of his books, it is an excellent read. My favorite book of his is “Trout Bum,” published in 1986. If you haven’t read one of his books, I highly recommend picking one up or listening to it on your next fishing adventure.
I know many of my readers enjoy John’s writing, so I thought it would be entertaining to share some of his most famous and my favorite quotes. I plan to update this article over time as I read more of his renowned books.
Here are the best John Gierach quotes, along with a few that have resonated with me. I invite you to share your favorite books or quotes from John in the comments. I hope you enjoy.
Best John Gierach Quotes
"There are people in my life who sometimes worry about me when I go off into the fields and streams, not realizing that the country is a calm, gracious, forgiving place and that the real dangers are found in the civilization you have to pass through to get there."
"Fishing has never lent itself to the kind of satisfaction on demand that technology has trained us to expect for the simple reason that fish don't want to be caught and go to great lengths to avoid it. That's why it doesn't make sense to take up fly-fishing for the bragging rights alone; it's better to see it as an acquired taste that reintroduces the chaos of uncertainty back into our well-regulated lives. Fishermen who care too much about the size and numbers of fish they catch are insufferable on good days and as harried as overworked executives on slow ones. On the other hand, it's possible to be a happy angler who doesn't catch many fish; it's just that no one will ever say you're good at it."
"The solution to any problem -work, love, money, whatever -is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be."
"They say you forget your troubles on a trout stream, but that's not quite it. What happens is that you begin to see where your troubles fit into the grand scheme of things, and suddenly they're just not such a big deal anymore."
"Sure, sometimes a non-angler will ask how I can stand to hook, play, and land these increasingly rare fish that I claim to love and respect so much, adding to their already heavy burden of survival. To that I can only say, "It's because life is more complicated than either of us could ever imagine."
"I know I'm a long way from greatness, but I am beginning to come at it in my own way. I can go through the basic motions pretty well, don't rely quite as religiously on specific fly patterns as I once did, have worked out ways of compensating for some of my most egregious weaknesses and have come to count heavily on timing because it's a hell of a lot easier to catch fish when the fish are biting."
"I necessarily fear change except that it's so seldom for the better. It's just that I can live with any number of things going straight to hell as long as these streams continue to hold up. If this amounts to living in a fool's paradise, don't waste your time trying to explain that to the fool."
"Sure, it was your idea and your fly, but he caught the big fish. Remember, fairness is a human idea largely unknown in nature."
"What I mean is, fisherman probably are liars, but if we make the good stuff better than it really was, we also make the bad stuff worse, and we believe that in the long run that balances out to be something very much like the truth."
"Down at the core of every fisherman's heart is the belief that on any day something wonderful and unlikely could be made to happen, and that if you're careful and patient it could happen to you. It's not quite as simple as the gut certainty that there's always a bigger fish in the water than the biggest one you ever caught there, but that probably comes close enough without getting too mystical about it."
"I used to like fishing because I thought it had some larger significance. Now I like fishing because it's the one thing I can think of that probably doesn't."
2 thoughts on “The Best of John Gierach”
I met John a couple of times. He was super chill, like most of his books.
That is awesome! I am sure he was. Such a great writer. Thanks Dan.
Nick