Illustration of Pat drawn by Peggy in the 1970s

McManus
Quotes

From Outdoor Life Magazine,

Written by Natalie Krebs

April 17, 2017

Famous

Illustration of Pat by his daughter, Peggy. Drawn sometime in the mid 1970s.

A Note About Quotes

We're starting our list off with a great piece by Natalie Krebs written for Outdoor Life called "17 Hilarious Pat McManus Quotes About the Outdoors." At the end of her article, we've added a section with humorous McManus quotes from his book, "Rubber Legs and White Tail-hairs."

SHARE YOUR FAVORITE McMANUS QUOTES

Send us your favorites to add to the list here.

A lthough not exactly known for his prowess as an outdoorsman, Patrick F. McManus is the genius behind some of the best yarns ever to appear in the pages — specifically the back page — of Outdoor Life. These 17 quotes were pulled from "Last Laugh," his regular column in the 1980s, '90s, and '00s. As good as a McManus story is from the first word to the last, the questionable advice, nuggets of wisdom, and pithy one-liners pulled from them still shine even when taken out of context. Here's a look at the highlights from some of our favorite columns.

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"I always figured the reason God invented skin was so people like me wouldn't have to look at innards."

— Blood Sausage, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, January 1990.

"I have gone through a number of hunting dogs, or they have gone through me, or at least my bank account, and I have come to the conclusion that the perfect hunting dog is one that belongs to somebody else."

— Of Wenches and Armed Wives, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, June 1996

"Avid hunting is a popular sport. There are probably more avid hunters than all the deer and elk hunters combined."

— Hunting the Wily Avid, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, May 1995

"Most of my exercise has come from strenuously avoiding all forms of physical fitness, although I do find it amusing to run the Jane Fonda Workout cassette at fast speed on the VCR."

— The MFFFF, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, November 1986

"I have practiced ignorance most of my life and am intimately familiar with all its variations and applications. . . Let us now apply ignorance to fly-fishing. Suppose your fly fishing is like mine — no offense intended — and your main objective is somehow to get a fly to plop on the water in the hope that nearby there's a fish lacking in matters of style and taste."

— Ignoramus, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, October 1997

"There was one angler who believed that if you can't do a thing right, you shouldn't do it at all. A strict adherent to this philosophy, he hadn't been fishing once in the past 37 years."

— I'll Ge to it Someday, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, June 1982

"Give a man enough rope and it still will come out 6 inches too short. That is the nature of rope, if not the nature of man."

— Tying One On, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, September 1987

"An elk that is shot dead within 15 feet of your hunting vehicle will still pull himself together enough to gallop to the very bottom of he steepest canyon within five miles. This is known as 'elk's revenge.'"

— Share and Share Alike, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, October 1982

"Poking at a campfire with a stick is one of life's great satisfactions."

— Of Fire and the Night, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, September 1999

"Back when I was a kid, parents never cluttered up a youngster's mind with explanations."

— The Complete Curmudgeon, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, February 1993

"Before committing yourself to a hunt wih any new acquaintance, you should first take him on an overnight camping trip, one of the very best of all psychological tests."

— Flaws, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, September 1984

"It is best not to use a sleeping bag on your first attempt to sleep outside alone in the dark. Sleeping bags are not made for running."

— Risk Assessment,Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, April 2009

"In my own defense, I have nothing against standards. Years ago I'd even possessed one myself. It was not a high standard by any means, but rather a low one, so low in fact I was forever tripping over the blasted thing. So I got rid of it."

— A Lady of Standards, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, April 2001

"No one had ever told Harold about the relationship between a man and his wife and his boats. I decided the duty had fallen to me."

— Wet Behind the Ears, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, February 1989

"He grouped his last five shots right in the center of the bull's-eye. Then I showed him my technique of scattering shots randomly around the target because, as I explained, you never know which way the deer might jump just as you pull the trigger."

— The Hunting Lesson, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, February 1983

"Tell her that a gun collection is like wilderness. Even though we don't use all of it all the time, we need to know that it's there.""

— Gun Running ... Past Your Wife, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, September 1985

"It is well-known that a hunter's mind usually surrenders to hardship before his body. The trick is to have the mind and body collapse simultaneously, which is the purpose of these exercises."

— The Hunter's Workout Guide, Last Laugh, Outdoor Life Magazine, May 1982

Humorous Quotes From

Rubber Legs & White Tail-Hairs

Mr. Craw, one of the seventh-grade teachers at Delmore Blight Grade School, wore the same suit every day for thirty years. Once, when Mr. Craw was sick, the suit came to school by itself and taught his classes, but only Skip Moseby noticed that Mr. Craw wasn't inside the suit.
Lester brought his stamp collection to Show and Tell and held forth on it for about an hour. An enterprising person could have cut the tedium into blocks and sold it for ice.
I only attend the symphony when my wife can rent the straitjacket that looks like a tuxedo.
Most of my exercise has come from strenuously avoiding all forms of physical fitness.
A set of rules governs summer reading, and the consequences of ignoring them can be serious. For example, a man was arrested recently for reading Proust's Remembrance of Things Past on a public beach while naked. If you have any sense, you'll leave Proust in the library where he belongs.
Combine sharks and illicit sex, and you have a darn good summer read. The sex scenes should not be too graphic, of course; otherwise, they are offensive or, worse yet, fall into the category of self-improvement.
Turning back to the window, I practiced my melancholy stare, getting it perfected for the time I became a writer.
Thet ornery old she-critter. I wasn't dyin' fast enough to suit her, so she put thet soup in a whiskey jug to disappoint me to death.
One day, some years ago, I awoke to find myself washed up on a beach in Hawaii. I made a mental note never again to partake of happy hour at a waterfront bar in Seattle.
There had been something about Biff that gave me the uneasy feeling my charter boat might turn out to be a nautical hybrid achieved by crossing the communal bathtub of a skid-row hotel with a sieve.
Lacking any instruction in art, I had to make my way as best I could through trial and error. The problem was, I couldn't tell which was the trial and which was the error.
His gun articles are so technical they don't have any words in them, but only numbers, abbreviations, and a smattering of punctuation.
I read his "Origins of the Cleaning Patch" aloud in the garden to bore insects to death. It makes a wonderful pesticide.

More Notable Quotes

"If it ain't broke, it ain't mine."
“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."
“The two best times to fish are when it's raining and when it ain't.”
"Smoked carp is as good as smoked salmon if you ain't got no smoked salmon." – Rancid Crabtree
"Never sniff a gift fish."