The Beauty of Fishing - gonefishinstories.format.com

My birthday began with the water.

-Dylan Thomas

When Roderick Haig- Brown wrote that “Perhaps fishing is, for me,

only an excuse to be near rivers,” he was right.

I don't need an excuse; I need the connection to the landscape of water, the memory of the trips, and the stories they become.

The camera is the tool I use to record the images that later help me share the stories of those I fish with and others I meet along the way.

This collection of photos, The Beauty of Fishing, is from my home waters; Long Island Sound and the rivers, lakes and ponds of Connecticut. It does not contain photographs of huge fish, the “Grip and Grin” shot, precise location information, product endorsements or techniques for fishing. The photographs are about what I experience and my humble attempt to capture moments in my home waters.

David J Gallipoli

"We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep." ~Henry David Thoreau

The bell-like notes of three raindrops falling on this still pool.

"Nothing in this world so enlivens my spirit and emotions as the rivers I know. They are necessities.” - Nick Lyons

In a life properly lived, you’re a river.

Jim Harrison

Striped Bass

Thaw and Hope. Fishing is about hope and luck. On this day, I was hopeful, but the water was too cold for a lucky catch.

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.

A. A. Milne

It was a cold, rainy night the first time a friend took me night fishing on a river. We were fishing below a dam that is no longer there, in a boat and on a river that was unfamiliar to me. A feeling of uneasiness overwhelmed me until I hooked my first striped bass. I have been a night fishing fan ever since.

Someone once asked me, do you need to wake up early to fish? I replied, no, but I do.

On the Sound.

“We need beauty because it makes us ache to be worthy of it.”

― Mary Oliver

Harbor Morning, was inspired by the paintings of J.M.W.Turner

A friend shared this location with me one night. I go back often trying to catch the river of my imagination.