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Funny Fishing Quotes for 2023

Whether fishing is a way of life for you or you are just getting your first fishing rod,, we have a list of the best funny fishing quotes to put a smile on your face. We think that when it comes to fishing quotes, funny ones are the best! We have scoured the internet and found funny quotes about fishing that include short funny fishing quotes for Instagram, cute funny quotes on fishing, funny fish quotes, short funny quotes about fish, funny fisherman quotes, funny fishing sayings, funny fish sayings, funny fishing one-liners, and funny fishing captions.

So if you are looking for a laugh or a funny fishing quote to put on a t-shirt or on a gift for someone who loves fishing, we have you covered.

You may also like our full list of Fishing Quotes. And after you have caught the big one head to our list of Funny Golfing Quotes.

Jump ahead to your favorite category or just start scrolling to find the perfect quote on fishing for you.

Funny Fishing Quotes

Here are our favorite funny fishing quotes.

“All the romance of trout fishing exists in the mind of the angler and is in no way shared by the fish.” – Harold F. Blaisdell

“Fishing tournaments seem a little like playing tennis with living balls.” – Jim Harrison

“If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there’d be a shortage of fishing poles.” Doug Larson

“Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish.” – Steven Wright

“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 McManus

“There is only one theory about angling in which I have perfect confidence, and this is that the two words, least appropriate to any statement, about it, are the words “always” and “never.”  – Lord Edward Grey

“The two best times to fish is when it’s rainin’ and when it ain’t.” – Patrick F. McManus

Adult and child fishing beside each other on breakwater with a funny fishing quotes on top

“Comedians get jokes offered to them, rock stars get women and underwear thrown on stage, and I get guys that want to take me fishing.” – Les Claypool

“Be patient and calm – for no one can catch fish in anger.” Herbert Hoover

“Fly tackle has improved considerably since 1676 when Charles Cotton advised anglers to ‘fish fine and far off,’ but no one has ever improved on that statement.” – John Gierach

“I love talk and I love fishing. I’m having a ball.” – Martin Milner

“It is impossible to grow weary of a sport that is never the same on any two days of the year.” – Theodore Gordon

“Some go to church and think about fishing, others go fishing and think about God.” – Tony Blake

“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-Brow

“I do fish. I think there is a connection between thinking and fishing mostly because you spend a lot of time up to your waist in water without a whole lot to keep your mind busy.” – Anthony Doerr

Short Funny Fishing Quotes for Instagram

These short funny fishing quotes for Instagram work perfectly as a caption for your next funny fishing picture. If you like to use short quotes for captions, check out our list of Short Funny Quotes and Best Short Quotes.

“A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.” – Samuel Johnson

“Calling fishing a hobby is like calling brain surgery a job.” Paul Schullery

“Creeps and idiots cannot conceal themselves for long on a fishing trip.” John Gierach

“Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes.” – Don Marquis

“Fishing seems to be the favorite form of loathing.” – Edgar Watson Howe

“Fishing, with me, has always been an excuse to drink in the daytime.” Jimmy Cannon

Boat on lake with short funny fishing quotes for Instagram by Jimmy Cannon

“I only make movies to finance my fishing.” – Lee Marvin

“The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad.” – A.K. Best

“There’s more B.S. in fly fishing than there is in a Kansas feedlot.” – Lefty Kreh

“What a tourist terms a plague of insects, the fly fisher calls a great hatch.” – Patrick F. McManus

“Fly-fishing is the most fun you can have standing up.” – Arnold Gingrich

“I have laid aside business, and gone a’fishing.” – Izaak Watson

“If fishing is a religion, fly fishing is high church.” Tom Brokaw

“The best time to go fishing is when you can get away.” – Robert Traver.

“The season is ended.  There was not enough of it; there never is.” – Nick Lyons

“There’s no taking trout with dry breeches.” – Cervantes

“You must lose a fly to catch a trout.” – George Herbert

“If fishing is interfering with your business, give up your business.” Sparse Grey Hackle

Fishing Quotes: Funny

When it comes to fishing quotes funny ones are our favorites. Here are some great funny quotes for fishing.

“As the evening sky faded from a salmon color to a sort of flint gray, I thought back to the salmon I caught that morning, and how gray he was, and how I named him Flint.” – Jack Handey

“Hell, if I’d jumped on all the dames I’m supposed to have jumped on, I’d have had no time to go fishing.” – Clark Gable

“If you’ve got short, stubby fingers and wear reading glasses, any relaxation you would normally derive from fly fishing is completely eliminated when you try to tie on a fly.” – Jack Ohman

“My biggest worry is that when I’m dead and gone, my wife will sell my fishing gear for what I said I paid for it.” – Koos Brandt

“Smoked carp tastes just as good as smoked salmon when you ain’t got no smoked salmon.”  -Patrick F. McManus

“I don’t exaggerate – I just remember big.” – Chi Chi Rodriguez

Person holding fish with fishing quotes funny by Chi Chi Rodriguez

“There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot.” – Steven Wright

“Look at where Jesus went to pick people. He didn’t go to the colleges… he got guys off the fishing docks.” – Jeff Foxworthy

“Beginners may ask why one fishes if he is to release his catch. They fail to see that the live trout, sucking in the fly and fighting the rod is the entire point to our sport. Dead trout are just so much lifeless meat.”  – Ernest G. Schwiebert, Jr

“I am firmly convinced that the ideal combination leading to a happy life is to have the time to both fish and read.” Brian Murphy

RELATED: Short Life Quotes and Short Happy Quotes

“I salute the gallantry and uncompromising standards of wild trout, and their tastes in landscapes” – John Madson

“I’ve gone fishing thousands of times in my life, and I have never once felt unlucky or poorly paid for those hours on the water.” – William Tapply

“The angling fever is a very real disease and can only be cured by the application of cold water and fresh, untainted air.” – Theodore Gordon

RELATED: Water Quotes

“There will be no end to angling controversies for there is no one best way for everyone to fish.” – Lee Wulff

Cute Funny Quotes on Fishing

We love these cute funny quotes on fishing.

“…buying a fly rod in the average city store, that is, joining it up and safely waggling it a bit, is much like seeing a woman’s arm protruding from a car window: all one can readily be sure of is that the window is open.” – Robert Traver

“I am not against golf, since I cannot suspect it keeps armies of the unworthy from discovering trout.” – Paul O’Neil

“It is to be observed that ‘angling’ is the name given to fishing by people who can’t fish.” – Stephen Leacock

“One evening I was awakened from a deep sleep by a weird noise coming from my husband, only to find out he was dreaming and he was a Dry Fly.  I suspected then, and now realize, his dreams are not made up of wild crazy women, only episodes of his days of being in the stream.” – Jan Thousand

“When I go fishing, I like to know that there’s nobody within five miles of me.” – Norman MacCaig

Boat on lake with cute funny quotes on fishing by Maccaig

“Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl.” Ernest Hemingway

“Three-fourths of the Earth’s surface is water, and one-fourth is land. It’s quite clear that the good Lord intended us to spend triple the amount of time fishing as taking care of the lawn.” – Chuck Clark

“If you think I’m pathetic for spending all this money to mount my prize catches just to impress people, you should see how much I pay the guy who catches them.” – Lukas Saunders

“By the time I had turned thirty, I’d realized two important things. One, I had to fish. Two, I had to work for a living.” Mallory Burton.

“I don’t want to sit at the head table anymore. I want to go fishing.” George Bush

“I think there is a connection between thinking and fishing mostly because you spend a lot of time up to your waist in water without a whole lot to keep your mind busy.” – Anthony Doerr

“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” Henry David Thoreau.

“The gods do not deduct from man’s allotted span the hours spent in fishing.” – Ancient Babylonian Proverb

“It is impossible to grow weary of a sport that is never the same on any two days of the year.” Theodore Gordon.

Funny Fish Quotes

When it comes to fish quotes, funny ones are the best ones. Check out these funny fish quotes.

“Hatchery fish have the same colours, but they always seem muted like bad reproductions of great art.”  – Bill Barich

“I look into my fly box, and think about all the elements I should consider in choosing the perfect fly: water temperature, what stage of development the bugs are in, what the fish are eating right now. Then “I remember what a guide told me: ‘Ninety percent of what a trout eats is brown and fuzzy and about five-eighths of an inch long.” – Alison Moir-Smith

“It has always been my private conviction that any man who pits his intelligence against a fish and loses has it coming.” – John Steinbeck

“Do not tell fish stories where the people know you. Particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.” Mark Twain

Fish underwater with funny fish quotes by Mark Twain

“Something to think about: If you fish the wrong fly long and hard enough, it will sooner or later become the right fly.” -John Gierach

“The fish and I were both stunned and disbelieving to find ourselves connected by a line.” William Humphrey

“This planet is covered with sordid men who demand that he who spends time fishing shall show returns in fish.” – Leonidas Hubbard, Jr.

“You know fish is great brain food.” – Larry “Well, you know, then you should fish for a whale!” – Moe

“You know when they have a fishing show on TV? They catch the fish and then let it go. They don’t want to eat the fish. They just want to make it late for something.” – Mitch Hedberg

“Fish are, of course, indispensable to the angler.  They give him an excuse for fishing and justify the fly rod without which he would be a mere vagrant.”  – Sparse Grey Hackle

“Soon after I embraced the sport of angling I became convinced that I should never be able to enjoy it if I had to rely on the cooperation of the fish.” – Sparse Grey Hackle

“Give a man a fish and he has food for a day. Teach him how to fish and you can get rid of him for the entire weekend.” – Zenna Schaffer

“Give a man a fish, and he can eat for a day. But teach a man how to fish, and he’ll be dead of mercury poisoning inside of three years.” – Charlie Haas

“Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll buy a funny hat. Talk to a hungry man about fish, and you’re a consultant.” – Scott Adams

“Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.” – Karl Marx

“If our father had his say, nobody who did not know how to catch a fish would be allowed to disgrace a fish by catching him.” – Norman Maclean

“One fish. Two fish. Red fish. Blue fish. Black fish. Blue fish. Old fish. New fish. This one has a little star. This one has a little car. Say! What a lot of fish there are.” – Dr. Seuss

Short Funny Quotes About Fish

Check out these short funny quotes about fish.

“Game fish are too valuable to be caught only once.” Lee Wulff

“Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.” – Benjamin Franklin

“I fish better with a lit cigar; some people fish better with talent.” Nick Lyons

“I only hope the fish will take half as much trouble for me as I’ve taken for them.” – Rudyard Kipling

“Some men would rather be photographed with their fish than with their wives.”  – Gwen Cooper

“I fish, therefore I don’t golf.” – Billy Connolly

“Fear No Fish, Never Grow up.”  – Flip Pallot

“Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overo it.” – Lao Tzu

“If I fished only to capture fish, my fishing trips would have ended long ago.” Zane Grey.

“If you want to catch more fish, use more hooks.” – George Allen

“It is not a fish until it is on the bank.” Old British saying

Person fishing with short funny quotes about fish

“May the holes in your net be no larger than the fish in it.” – Irish Blessing

“So long, and thanks for all the fish.” Douglas Adams.

“The fish you release maybe a gift to another, as it may have been a gift to you.” – Lee Wulff

“I’m going to gut you like a fish.” – Mike Tyson

Funny Fisherman Quotes

You’ll love these funny fisherman quotes. Pick out your favorite funny quotes for fishermen!

“Grant me the Serenity to accept the size of the fish I catch, the Courage not to lie about it, and the Wisdom to know that none of my fishing buddies would believe me anyway.” – Fisherman’s Prayer

“He told us about Christ’s disciples being fisherman, and we were left to assume…that all great fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fisherman and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.” -Norman Maclean

“Most fishermen swiftly learn that it’s a pretty good rule never to show a favorite spot to any fisherman you wouldn’t trust with your wife.” – John Voelker

“Of all the liars among mankind, the fisherman is the most trustworthy.” – William Sherwood Fox

Person holding hook with funny fisherman quotes by William Sherwood Fox

“Most of the world is covered by water. A fisherman’s job is simple: Pick out the best parts.” Charles Waterman.

“The best fisherman I know try not to make the same mistakes over and over again; instead they strive to make new and interesting mistakes and to remember what they learned from them.” John Gierach.

“All you need to be a fisherman is patience and a worm.” – Herb Shriner

“All fishermen are liars; it’s an occupational disease with them like housemaid’s knee or editor’s ulcers.” – Beatrice Gray Cook

“Even eminent chartered accountants are known, in their capacity as fishermen, blissfully to ignore differences between seven and 10 inches, half a pound and two pounds, three fish and a dozen fish.” – William Sherwood Fox

“Fly fishermen are born honest, but they get over it.” – Ed Zern

“Most fishermen use the double haul to throw their casting mistakes further.” – Lefty Kreh

“People who fish for food, and sport be damned, are called pot-fishermen. The more expert ones are called crack pot-fishermen. All other fishermen are called crackpot fishermen. This is confusing.” – Alexander Gurman

“We ask a simple question And that is all we wish: Are fishermen all liars? Or do only liars fish?” – William Sherwood Fox

“All Americans believe that they are born fishermen. For a man to admit a distaste for fishing would be like denouncing mother-love or hating moonlight.” – John Steinbeck

Funny Fishing Sayings

No one is sure who said these funny fishing sayings first.

“A worm is a small, reluctant animal used to capture a larger reluctant animal.”

“An angler is a man who spends rainy days sitting on the muddy banks of rivers doing nothing because his wife won’t let him do it at home.”

“Even if you’ve been fishing for three hours and haven’t gotten anything except poison ivy and sunburn, you’re still better off than the worm.”

“Fishing is fun…catching is better.”

“Fishing is the sport of drowning worms.”

“When in doubt, exaggerage.”

Man holding fish with funny fishing sayings

“Ten fishermen, ten hunters, twenty liars.”

“Those who die with the most days fishing, wins.”

“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and you will find bait in the fridge.”

“A day without fishing is like a day without sunshine.”

“Bass fishermen watch Monday night football, drink beer, drive pickup trucks and prefer noisy women with big breasts. Trout fishermen watch MacNeil-Lehrer, drink white wine, drive foreign cars with passenger-side airbags and hardly think about women at all. This last characteristic may have something to do with the fact that trout fishermen spend most of the time immersed up to their thighs in ice-cold water.”

“Some people will just never understand us, fishing isn’t just a pastime or a sport, it’s a way of life.”

“There are two things in life you should never be late for, Number one is Church and Number two is fishing.”

“Tight lines, warm breezes, good friends, plenty of bait it doesn’t get any better.”

Funny Fish Sayings

Check out these funny fish sayings. Check out our list of our Funny Sayings for more.

“Always think like a fish, no matter how weird it gets.”

“Bragging may not bring happiness, but no man having caught a large fish goes home through an alley.”

“Early to bed…early to rise…fish all day…make up lies.”

“Even a fish wouldn’t get into trouble if he kept his mouth shut.”

“Fish stories told here…. some true!”

“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.”

Person on boat fishing with funny fish sayings

“I’m a man of few words, “Let’s fish.”

“Men and fish are alike. They both get into trouble when they open their mouths.”

“Nothing makes a fish bigger than almost being caught.”

“To fish or not to fish? That’s a dumb question.”

“Wanted: Good woman – Must be able to clean, cook, sew, dig worms and clean fish. Must have boat and motor. Please send picture of boat and motor.”

“Work is for people who don’t know how to fish!”

“Carpe Diem,’ does not mean ‘fish of the day,’”

“You do not cease to fish because you get old. You get old because you cease to fish!” 

Funny Fishing One-Liners

You can’t go wrong with these funny fishing one-liners.

“A fisherman is a jerk on one end of the line waiting for a jerk on the other.”

“Fisherman’s prayer: Lord, help me to catch fish so large, that even I, in the telling of it, never need to lie.”

“A woman who has never seen her husband fishing, doesn’t know what a patient man she married!”

“I once gave up fishing. It was the most terrifying weekend of my life.”  

“Life is like a game, but fishing is serious.”

People fishing on dock with funny fishing one-liners

“You say I`m a compulsive fishing freak like it’s a bad thing.”

“Fishing will do a lot for a man but it won’t make him truthful.”

“A bad day of fishing is still better than a good day at the office!”

“A man and his boat do not need to be justified.”

“That’s about as big as a fish that big gets.”

“There is no limit to how many times you can go fishing.”

“I don’t exaggerate…I just remember big!”

“I got a fishing rod for my wife – good trade.”

Last Funny Quotes About Fishing

Here are our last funny quotes about fishing.

“Everyone should believe in something. I believe I’ll go fishing.” Henry David Thoreau

“I think it’s time for me to get out, because at the moment, I’m only thinking about fishing 21 hours a day, and they’re the waking moments. And even when I close my eyes I’m thinking about it.” – Rex Hunt

“I’ve managed to convince my wife that somewhere in the Bible it says, “Man cannot have too many shotguns and fishing poles.” – General Norman Schwarzkopf

“Our tradition is that of the first man who sneaked away to the creek when the tribe did not really need fish.” – Roderick Haig-Brown

“There are only two occasions when Americans respect privacy, especially in Presidents. Those are prayer and fishing.” – Herbert Hoover

“To paraphrase a deceased patriot, I regret that I have only one life to give to my fly-fishing.” – Robert Traver

“Angling is extremely time-consuming. That’s sort of the whole point.” – Thomas McGuane

“Fishing books should ooze from a riverbank, not rocket out of publisher’s offices in big cities.”  – Neil Patterson

“I go fishing not to find myself but to lose myself.” Joseph Monniger

Person on beach fishing with funny quotes about fishing by Monniger

“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.” -John Gierach

“Often I have been exhausted on trout streams, uncomfortable, wet, cold, briar scarred, sunburned, mosquito bitten, but never, with a fly rod in my hand have I been less than in a place that was less than beautiful.”  – Charles Kuralt

“The trout do not rise in the cemetery, so you better do your fishing while you are still able.” -Sparse Grey Hackle

“There is no greater fan of fly fishing than the worm.” – Patrick K. McManus

“One thing becomes clearer as one gets older and one’s fishing experience increases, and that is the paramount importance of one’s fishing companions.” John Ashley Cooper.

“Catching a fish is as incidental to fishing as making babies is to fucking.” – William Humphrey

Funny Fishing Captions

If you like these funny fishing captions for Instagram, head over to our full list of Perfect Fishing Captions.

I can’t work today, my arm is in a cast

Fishing is the sport of drowning worms

The two best times to fish is when it’s rainin’ and when it ain’t

It’s not how you deep you fish, it’s how you wiggle your worm

Fish tremble before me

I spent most of my money on fishing. The rest I wasted.

Person fishing on boat near ocean shore with a funny fishing captions that reads I spent most of my money on fishing, the rest I wasted

A man’s one last cast is like a woman’s ‘I’ll be five minutes.’

Sorry, I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about fishing.

Trust me, I’m a sturgeon

Ghost-fish Killah

We’re hake-ing in the dough!

This crab is so good I’m gonna be shellfish and not share a bite

You’ve cod to be kidding me

Holy carp!

Party like a lob-star

You can see the Northern Lights in the Arctic Char!

Is she having a boy or a gill?

She’s a jackfish of all trades

Hope you found the funny quote about fish, funny quote for fishing or that perfect funny fishing saying you were looking for.

You might also like our list of quotes about rivers, lakes, water and the sea  for your next fishing adventure.

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