Modern Fishing

Recreational fishing and the closely related (nearly synonymous) sport fishing describe fishing for pleasure or competition. Recreational fishing has conventions, rules, licensing restrictions and laws that limit the way in which fish may be caught. Typically, these prohibit the use of nets and the catching of fish with hooks not in the mouth.

The most common form of recreational fishing is done with a rod, line and hooks attached to any of a wide range of lures or baits. This practice is known as angling.

In angling, it is sometimes expected or required that fish all be returned to the water (catch and release). The practice, however, is viewed by some with disapproval as they consider it unethical to inflict pain on a fish for fun or sport and not for reasons of capturing food. Anglers deny this charge, pointing out that fish commonly feed on hard and spiky prey items, and as such can be expected to have tough mouths, and also that some fish will re-take a lure they have just been hooked on, a behaviour that is unlikely if being hooked was painful.

In a real sense, the suitability of catch and release is an ethical consideration and, as such, a science-based conclusion on the issue is unavailable. However, a variety of scientific studies have recorded very high survival rates (in excess of 90%) for caught and released fish, especially if the fish are carefully handled and barbless hooks and artificial lures are used.

Proponents of catch and release also contend that the practice is increasingly necessary in order to conserve fish stocks in the face of burgeoning human populations, mounting fishing pressure and worsening habitat degradation. Opponents would prefer to ban or to severely restricting angling, a suggestion most anglers find unpalatable.

Recreational fishermen can have profound deleterious effects on fish stocks, particularly those of large, slow growing species. The only way for growing numbers of recreational fishermen to continue fishing is to reduce their impact on fish populations. Catch and release, in combination with techniques such as strong tackle (to get fish in quickly, for release in good condition), careful handling of fish and barbless hooks (to reduce physical damage), may be useful tools in this endeavour.

A recent phenomenon of recreational fishing are fishing competitions (tournaments) where fishermen compete for prizes based on the total weight of a given species of fish caught within a predetermined time. This sport evolved from local fishing contests into large competitive circuits, especially in North America. Competitors are most often professional fishermen who are supported by commercial endorsements.

Big-game fishing describes fishing from boats to catch large open-water species such as tuna, sharks and marlin.

Noodling and Trout tickling may be pursued as a recreation.

Laws made to control recreational fishing laws frequently also attempt to control the harvest of other aquatic species, such as frogs and turtles.

Toxins

Many hunter gatherer cultures use poisonous plants to stun fish so that they become easy to collect by hand. Some of these poisons paralyze the fish, others are thought to work by removing oxygen from the water.

Cyanides are used to capture live fish near coral reefs for the aquarium and seafood market. This illegal fishing occurs mainly in or near the Philippines, Indonesia, and the Caribbean to supply the 2 million marine aquarium owners in the world. Many fish caught in this fashion die either immediately or in shipping. Those that survive often die from shock or from massive digestive damage. The high concentrations of cyanide on reefs so harvested damages the coral polyps and has also resulted in cases of cyanide poisoning among local fishermen and their families.

Trained animals

In China and Japan, the practice of cormorant fishing is thought to date back some 1300 years. Fishermen use the natural fish-hunting instincts of the cormorants to catch fish, but a metal ring placed round the bird's neck prevents large, valuable fish being swallowed. The fish are instead collected by the fisherman. [10]

The practice of tethering a remora, a sucking fish, to a fishing line and using the remora to capture sea turtles probably originated in the Indian Ocean. The earliest surviving records of the practice are Peter Martyr d'Anghera's 1511 accounts of the second voyage of Columbus to the New World (1494)[11]. However, these accounts are probably apocryphal, and based on earlier accounts no longer extant.

Dating from the 1500s in Portugal, Portuguese Water Dogs were used by fishermen to send messages between boats, to retrieve fish and articles from the water, and to guard the fishing boats.

Fish Traps

Traps are culturally almost universal and seem to have been independently invented many times. There are essentially two types of trap, a permanent or semi-permanent structure placed in a river or tidal area and pot-traps that are baited to attract prey and periodically lifted.

Indigenous Australians were, prior to European colonisation, most populous in Australia's better-watered areas such as the Murray-Darling river system of the south-east. Here, where water levels fluctuate seasonally, indigenous people constructed ingenious, stone, fish traps. Unfortunately most have been completely or partially destroyed. The largest and best known were the Brewarrina fish traps on the Barwon River at Brewarrina in New South Wales, which fortunately are at least partly preserved [6]. The Brewarinna fish traps caught huge numbers of migratory native fish as the Barwon River rose in flood and then fell. In southern Victoria, indigenous people created an elaborate systems of canals, some more than 2 km long. The purpose of these canals was the encouragement and catching of eels, a fish of short coastal rivers (as opposed to rivers of the Murray-Darling system). The eels were caught by a variety of traps including stone walls constructed across canals with a net placed across an opening in the wall. Traps at different levels in the marsh came into operation as the water level rose and fell. Somewhat similar stone wall traps were constructed by native American Pit River people in north-eastern California.

In medieval Europe, large fishing weir structures were constructed from wood posts and wattle fences. 'V' shaped structures in rivers could be as long as 60 m and worked by directing fish towards fish traps or nets. Such fish traps were evidently controversial in medieval England. The Magna Carta includes a clause requiring that they be removed:

All fish-weirs shall be removed from the Thames, the Medway, and throughout the whole of England, except on the sea coast.

Basket weir fish traps were widely used in ancient times. They are shown in medieval illustrations and surviving examples have been found. Basket weirs are about 2 m long and comprise two wicker cones, one inside the other — easy to get into and hard to get out.

Pot traps are typically used to catch crustaceans such as crabs, lobsters and crayfish. Pot traps such as the lobster trap may be constructed in various shapes, each is a mesh box designed with a convoluted entrance that makes entry much easier than exit. The pots are baited and lowered into the water and checked daily. Similar traps are used in many areas to capture bait fish.

Ice fishing

Ice fishing is the practice of catching fish with lines and hooks through an opening in the ice on a frozen body of water. It is practiced by hunter-gatherers such as the Inuit and by sportsmen in many cold climates.

Kite fishing

Kite fishing was invented in China and was (and is) also known to the people of New Guinea and other Pacific Islands. It is not clear whether kite fishing was communicated or of independent invention. Suitable kites may be of very simple construction. Those of Tobi Island are a large leaf stiffened by the ribs of the fronds of the coconut palm. The fishing line may be made from coconut fibre and the lure made from spiders webs.

Kites can provide the boatless fishermen access to waters that would otherwise be available only to boats. Similarly, for boat owners, kites provide a way to fish in areas where it is not safe to navigate such as shallows or coral reefs where fish may be plentiful. Kites can also be used for trolling a lure through the water.

Fishing lines

Fish are caught with a fishing line by encouraging a fish to bite upon a fish hook or a gorge. A fishing hook will pierce the mouthparts of a fish and may be barbed to make escape less likely. A gorge is buried in the bait such that it would be swallowed end first. The the tightening of the line would fix it cross-wise in the quarry's stomach or gullet and so the capture would be assured.

Fishing with a hook and line is called angling.

Trolling is a technique in which a fishing lure on a line is drawn through the water. Trolling from a moving boat is a technique of big-game fishing and is used when fishing from boats to catch large open-water species such as tuna and marlin. Trolling is also a freshwater angling technique.

Long-line fishing is a commercial fishing technique that uses hundreds or even thousands of baited hooks hanging from a single line.

Dredging

There are types of dredges used for collecting scallops or oysters from the seabed. They tend to have the form of a scoop made of chain mesh and they are towed by a fishing boat. Scallop dredging is very destructive to the seabed, and nowadays is often replaced by mariculture or by scuba diving to collect the scallops.

Fishing nets

All fishing nets are meshes usually formed by knotting a relatively thin thread. Modern nets are usually made of artificial polyamides like nylon, although nets of organic polyamides such as wool or silk thread were common until recently and are still used in certain areas.

A small hand net held open by a hoop and possibly on the end of a long stiff handle has been known since antiquity and may be used for sweeping up fish near the water surface. Such a net used by an angler to aid in landing a captured fish is known as a landing net. In England, hand netting is the only legal way of catching eels and has been practiced for thousands of years on the River Parrett and River Severn.

A casting net is circular with a weighted periphery. Sizes vary up to about 4 m diameter. The net is thrown by hand in such a manner that it speads out on the water and sinks. Fish are caught as the net is hauled back in. [5].
Coracles on the River Teifi, Wales 1972
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Coracles on the River Teifi, Wales 1972

Coracle-fishing is performed by two men, each seated in his coracle and with one hand holding the net while, with the other, he plies his paddle. When a fish is caught, each hauls up his end of the net until the two coracles are brought to touch and the fish is then secured.

The Chinese fishing nets (Cheena vala) found at Kochi in India are an unusual method of fishing. Huge mechanical contrivances hold out horizontal nets of 20 m or more across. The nets are dipped into the water and raised again, but otherwise cannot be moved.

A seine is a large fishing net that hangs vertically in the water by attaching weights along the bottom edge and floats along the top.

Trawling is a method of fishing that involves actively pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats.

A gillnet catches fish which try to pass through it by snagging on the gill covers. Thus trapped, the fish can neither advance trough the net nor retreat.

Ghost nets are nets that have been lost at sea. They may continue to be a menace to wildlife for many years.

Spear and bow fishing

Spear fishing is an ancient method of fishing and may be conducted with an ordinary spear or a specialised variant such as an eel spear (Image) or the trident. A small trident type spear with a long handle is used in the American South and Midwest for "gigging" bullfrogs with a bright light at night, or for gigging carp and other trash fish in the shallows.

Traditional spear fishing is restricted to shallow waters, but the development of the speargun has made the method much more efficient. With practice, divers are able to hold their breath for up to four minutes; of course, a diver with underwater breathing equipment can dive for much longer periods.

Hunter gatherers may use the bow to kill fish in shallow water.

Hand fishing

It is possible to fish with minimal equipment by using only the hands. In the USA catching catfish in this way is known as noodling. In the British Isles, the practice of catching trout by hand is known as trout tickling; it is an art mentioned several times in the plays of Shakespeare.

Trout binning is a method of fishing, possibly fictional, performed with a sledgehammer. [4]

Divers can catch lobsters by hand.

Pearl diving is the practice of hunting for oysters by free-diving to depths of up to 30 m.

Hand-line fishing is a technique requiring a fishing line with a weight and one or more lure-like hooks.

Fishing in antiquity

Origins

Fishing is a very ancient practice that dates back at least to the Mesolithic period which began about 10,000 years ago. We know from archaeological features such as shell middens [1], discarded fish bones and cave paintings that sea foods were important and consumed in significant quantities. During this time, most people lived a hunter-gather life style and were, of necessity, constantly on the move. However, where there are a few early examples of permanent settlements (though not necessarily permanently occupied) such as those at Lepenski Vir, they are almost always associated with fishing as a major source of food.

The neolithic culture and technology spread worldwide between about 8,000 and 4,000 years ago. With the new technologies of farming and pottery came the basic forms of most fishing methods known today.

Fishing may even pre-date the development of modern humans. There is a controversial theory called the aquatic ape hypothesis which proposes that the ancestors of modern humans went through one or more periods of time living in a semi-aquatic setting and that they gathered most of their food from shallow coastal or other waters before their descendants returned to a more land-based existence.

Ancient archaeology

Ancient representations

The ancient river Nile was full of fish; fresh and dried fish were a staple food for much of the population. The Egyptians invented various implements and methods for fishing and these are clearly illustrated in tomb scenes, drawings, and papyrus documents. Simple reed boats served for fishing. Woven nets, weir baskets made from willow branches, harpoons and hook and line (the hooks having a length of between eight millimetres and eighteen centimetres) were all being used. By the 12th dynasty, metal hooks with barbs were being used. As is fairly common today, the fish were clubbed to death after capture. Nile perch, catfish and eels were among the most important fish. Some representations hint at fishing being pursued as a pastime.

Fishing scenes are rarely represented in ancient Greek culture, a reflection of the low social status of fishing. There is a wine cup, dating from 510–500 BC, that shows a boy crouched on a rock with a fishing-rod in his right hand and a basket in his left. In the water below, a rounded object of the same material with an opening on the top. This has been identified as a fish-cage used for keeping live fish, or as a fish-trap. It is clearly not a net. This object is currently in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Pictorial evidence of Roman fishing comes from mosaics which show fishing from boats with rod and line as well as nets. Various species such as conger, lobster, sea urchin, octopus and cuttlefish are illustrated. Image of Roman mosaic. In a parody of fishing, a type of gladiator called retiarius was armed with a trident and a casting-net. He would fight against the murmillo, who carried a short sword and a helmet with the image of a fish on the front.

The Greco-Roman sea god Neptune is depicted as wielding a fishing trident.

Ancient literature

There are numerous references to fishing in ancient literature; in most cases, however, the descriptions of nets and fishing-gear do not go into detail, and the equipment is described in general terms. An early example from the Bible in Job 41:7: Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears?

The Greek historian Polybius ((ca 203 BC-120 BC), in his Histories, describes hunting for swordfish by using a harpoon with a barbed and detachable head.

Oppian of Corycus, a Greek author wrote a major treatise on sea fishing, the Halieulica or Halieutika, composed between 177 and 180. This is the ealiest such work to have survived intact to the modern day. Oppian describes various means of fishing including the use of nets cast from boats, scoop nets held open by a hoop, spears and tridents, and various traps “which work while their masters sleep”. Oppian’s description of fishing with a “motionless” net is also very interesting:

The fishers set up very light nets of buoyant flax and wheel in a circle round about while they violently strike the surface of the sea with their oars and make a din with sweeping blow of poles. At the flashing of the swift oars and the noise the fish bound in terror and rush into the bosom of the net which stands at rest, thinking it to be a shelter: foolish fishes which, frightened by a noise, enter the gates of doom. Then the fishers on either side hasten with the ropes to draw the net ashore.

From ancient representations and literature it is clear that fishing boats were typically small, lacking a mast or sail, and were only used close to the shore.

In traditional Chinese history, history begins with three semi-mystical and legendary individuals who taught the Chinese the arts of civilization around 2800-2600 BC: of these Fu Hsi was reputed to be the inventor of writing, hunting, trapping, and fishing.

Fishing

Fishing is the activity of hunting for fish. By extension, the term fishing is also applied to hunting for other aquatic animals such as various types of shellfish as well as squid, octopus, turtles, frogs and some edible marine invertebrates. The term fishing is usually not applied to the hunting of aquatic mammals such as whales. Fishing is an ancient and worldwide practice with many techniques and traditions, and it has been transformed by modern technological developments.