Fishing

"Trout fishing scene", Natural history of western wild animals and guide for hunters, trappers, and sportsmen, 1875

Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fishing techniques include hand-gathering, spearing, netting, angling, shooting and trapping. The term fishing broadly includes catching aquatic animals other than fish, such as crustaceans (shrimp, lobsters or crabs), shellfish, cephalopods (octopi and squids) and echinoderms (starfish and sea urchins). The term is not normally applied to harvesting fish raised in controlled cultivations (fish farming), nor is it normally applied to hunting aquatic mammals, where terms like whaling and sealing are used instead.

Methods

Angling

Without fishing gear, several alternatives can be adopted. For angling, three main parts are needs: a hook, a line and bait. For improvising a hook, alternatives include paperclips, broken pop-tops, sharp twigs and bobby pins. For the line to which the hook is attached, materials include shoelaces, a clothing thread, twine, string, yarn, long strong grass, flax, or seaweed stems. To attrach a fish to the hook, bait is also needed; among the items that can be used as bait are food scraps (meat is ideal), bits of colorful plastic, leaves, dead insects and jewelry.

Once the fish bites, sccopt it up with your hands or an improvised net, as hauling it in with the line will likely cause it to break.

Bailing out

Bailing out is a method mostly used in Africa and Southern Asia that consists in emptying the water from a small area (including rock pools, tidal pools, smaller areas of water source, among others) to scoop the fish easier. Alternatively, you can also use a basket or netting to filter the water and catch fish at the same time, like a strainer. Once the water is bailed out, try to attract fish to the container emptying the water.

Cornering

Cornering a fish means moving slowly towards them and backing the fish into an area where they cannot escape. The method is easier and more effective if you are assisted by someone. Possible materials to corner the fish include a length of cloth. Stretch out the length of cloth, making sure that there is no escape route underneath. If you are accompanied, your partner can hold the other end. Grab the fish once they are backed into a sufficiently small area, preferably with a container to toss them into or scoop them.

Hand catching

Among the listed method, this is the one that requires the most skill and patience from the person. To start, choose a fish hide out; shallow water, such as low tide, or a shallower stream or river, are easier for catching fish with bare hands. Approach the fish and lower your hands into the hideout slowly, with your palms facing upwards and your fingers extended towards the fish. Try to keep your hands as still as possible. As the fish begin getting used to your hands after several minutes, start inching them towards the fish. Once you feel the fish's chin, close your fingers, grab the fish by its gills, and pull it out of the water.

Gathering seafood by hand can include alternatives options as easy as picking shellfish or kelp up off the beach, digging for clams or crabs, or diving under the water for abalone or lobsters.

Scooping

Scooping consists in trapping fish between two containers. Options include buckets, empty containers and plastic bags. After finding fish in a relatively small space, such as a tidepool or a small pond, lower the scoops slowly into the water. Bring both scoops together once the fish comfortable with the scoops and settle between them.

Spearing

See also: Spear

As with other methods when improvising, there are several options to consider for the sharp end of the stick, including a pocket knife, scrap metal, glass, hard plastic, scissor blades or just sharpening the stick where the items would usually be attached to. If a sharp object is used, twine, shoelaces, or other strings can be used to attach them to the stick or pole. Care should been taken to mind light refraction, as water distorts the position of underwater objects and makes the fish look closer than they actually are. You can practice your perception abilities by stabbing rocks and debris to learn the difference that should be accounted in the aim. It is easier to spear the fish in a relatively contained area, and you should aim and stab quickly.

Traps

Improvised materials for a container include clothing, a bucket, a jar, a plastic container or a plastic bag. Fish tend to hide in shadowy areas, including below overhanging trees, the overhangs of banks, within water plants, or near rocks. Lay the trap in a likely fish hideout, and wait for fish to swim in. It's important to be patient, and if you're holding the trap, you should wait until the fish get used to the presence of your hands. Pull up the trap as soon as a fish swims in.

Dependencies

• Thread
• Twine
  • Fishing line
• Bow and arrow
• Spear
  • Fishing
    • Food

See also

• Cooking
• Farming
• Gathering
• Hunting
• Activities

Bibliography

• Otto Gabriel and Andres von Brandt, Fish Catching Methods of the World

External links

• How To Make Various Types Of Traps And Pots - Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
• How to Make a Primitive Funnel Fish Trap that keeps on giving - Willow Haven Outdoor
• How To…Catch a Fish with Your Bare Hands - Sam Holder, 3 June 2009, Portland Monthly
• How do fish hide in clear waters? - Esther Inglis-Arkell, 20 June 2010, Gizmodo
• The Manual - How to spear a fish - 13 October 2010, Esquire
• 25 Survival Tips Even Bear Grylls Wouldn't Try - Jacob Ormrod, 7 November 2018, The Travel
• How to Make a Survival Fishing Hook - Ron Jaxon, Snapguide
• Category:Fishing - WikiHow

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Fishing, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Gathering_seafood_by_hand, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).