For those interested in what I look for in a product review (and by derivative and default, the basis upon which I rate reviews), please read the following:

Here are some 'quick links' to my reviews based on product type... (The links that are there function. But, it's currently a work-in-progress when it comes to organizing the links to all my reviews. Please bear with me.)

I thought I'd share a few of my favorite and, hopefully, relevant quotes:

"...Every believer in manliness, and therefore in manly sport, and every lover of nature, every man who appreciates the majesty and beauty of the wilderness and of wild life, should strike hands with the far-sighted men who wish to preserve our material resources in the effort to keep our forests and our game beasts, game birds, and game fish - indeed, all the living creatures of prairie, and woodland, and seashore - from wanton destruction...True sportsmen, worthy of the name, men who shoot only in season and in moderation, do no harm whatever to game."

"An addiction to fishing can do many things for a man, but none of them quite compares with the way it can, very occasionally, defeat the clock."

"I realize that men working together can perform miracles such as sending men to walk on the surface of the moon. There is definitely a need and a place for teamwork, but there is also a need for an individual sometime in his life to forget the world of parts and pieces and put something together on his own - complete something. He's got to create... I don't know what the answer is. In time man gets used to almost anything, but the problem seems to be that technology is advancing faster than he can adjust to it. I think it's time we started applying the brakes... I have found the simplest things have given me the most pleasure. They didn't cost me a lot of money either. They just worked on my senses... The world is full of such things."

"Catching trout with a bit of bent wire is a rather trivial business, but fortunately people fish better than they know. In most cases it is the man who is caught. Trout-fishing regarded as bait for catching men, for the saving of both body and soul, is important, and deserves all the expense and care bestowed on it."

"Whether we succeed in our struggle to bring a humane balance between what we do with nature and what nature can do for us is up to us - up to all of us. The man who never tracked a bear must be as concerned with preservation of the wilderness as the most avid hunter. The man who has lived all his life outdoors must be as much concerned as the city-dweller with the need for green places in urban and suburban areas."

"Trout fishing for food is different from trout fishing for sport. When a man needs trout for supper, he is not going to observe the niceties that sport fishermen respect. He is after his trout in the most direct way open to him under the law...Since we depended so heavily on trout for food, we fished seriously. We did not have the leisure in which to play with the various methods of fishing...Having learned the secrets of the trout, I acquired a new confidence in my ability to survive in the mountains. My food supply was surely obtainable from the creeks and lakes; hence the fear of being lost and starving was not a factor..."

"Obviously, the time has come to begin planning and preparing for what economists call a steady-state economy, or ecologists an equilibrium society, one living in a condition of balance with the natural environment that is our only source of food, shelter, air, water, and sunlight."

"...And one of the fish nibbled, a fat one, for in sleep dogs dream of bread, and of fish dream I. Well, he was tightly hooked, and the blood was running, and the rod I grasped was bent with his struggle. So with both hands I strained, and had a sore tussle for the monster. How was I ever to land so big a fish with hooks all too slim? Then just to remind him he was hooked, I gently pricked him, {108a} pricked, and slackened, and, as he did not run, I took in line. My toil was ended with the sight of my prize; I drew up a golden fish, lo you, a fish all plated thick with gold!..."

"...Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of Nature themselves, are often in a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation. She is not afraid to exhibit herself to them...He who is only a traveller learns things at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience."